


He's My (GAY) Thing

by FalseProphet (Batmanthegroomer)



Series: Family Business--Canon Divergence [1]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Anal Sex, Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-20
Updated: 2013-10-09
Packaged: 2017-12-27 03:24:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 25,290
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/973734
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Batmanthegroomer/pseuds/FalseProphet
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A few choice quotes and I want to explore sexuality. It’s not gay or straight, it’s not even bi. It’s love and the details don’t matter.</p><p>Or</p><p>A look through Dean Winchester's defining moments, leading up to the dawning of a realization in a man who would have described himself as 'mainly heterosexual'.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This will be multi-chapter and there will be porn/smut/sex whatever you want to call it at the end. I just want to explore a few avenues I haven't seen anyone tackle yet. People are stuck on labeling Dean and I wanted to get rid of the labels.

"Boys imitate what they see. If what they see is emotional distance, guardedness, and coldness between men they will grow up to imitate that behavior…What do boys learn when they do not see men with close friendships, where there are no visible models of intimacy in a man’s life beyond his spouse?"

\- Kindlon and Thompson, Raising Cain

 

"Dean, would you turn that down? I think Sammy's finally asleep."

John Winchester received no verbal response, so he looked up from his journal to make sure his son had heard him. Dean, in fact, had not. The hunter sighed leaning back in his chair. Whatever show Dean had discovered on basic cable was certainly captivating. John could make out voices, tones but nothing concrete. He smiled softly, a twitch in the corner of his lips, at the intense concentration depicted on Dean's face. Unfortunately a soft moan from the other room reminded John that Sammy was sick, and needed his sleep. The boy had always been a light sleeper and that meant the TV needed some muting.

"Hey, Dean, did you hear me?" John ventured, standing and approaching his son. This time he was rewarded with a quick glance from Dean.

"Uh, no sir. What?" Dean blinked a few times, glancing to the TV and back to John.

"I said you should probably turn this down, Sammy's finally asleep." John leaned forward onto his forearms, cupping his hands together and squinting at the TV. Dean glanced over his shoulder at his father, grabbed the remote and hit 'soft mute'.

"What are you... watching?" John said after a moment of scrutinizing the TV. It appeared to be some kind of soap opera--given away by the strange filming style, long pauses and clearly over-dramatic dialogue--and it was currently focused on two men. Two men standing far too close to each other, looking far too long at one another to be anything other than intimate. John shifted his weight uncomfortably.

"I don't know." Dean said with a shrug. "It's the only thing that's not news." He glanced up at his father's face, catching the tensing of a muscle in his father's jaw. He frowned and looked back at the TV. "I think they're in love." He offered, wondering if perhaps his father was still watching out of curiosity. It would be best to fill in his father on what he knew.

"Yeah?" John answered quietly. "What makes you say that?"

Dean scrunched up his face and looked back to the TV. It was an odd question. He shrugged again.

"I... I don't know. I mean--they don't act like most guys act, you know? It's like--uh--like when you talk to a woman about a hunt instead of when you talk to a guy." Dean rubbed the back of his neck. "They touch each other like--on the arm and shoulder a lot--and I've never seen you, I mean..."

"Ah well, women just need more comfort than men, Dean. Guys are tough and it's up to us to protect people. Women can be smart and I've seen some that have made better hunters than some of the guys I've met, Dean, but women are emotional. Guys don't need hugs, girls do."

"You hug me and Sammy."

"You're still kids. You'll grow out of it." John chuckled and stood up. He turned away and stretched his arms over his head trying to work out the stiffness from a few days' worth of research. Dean turned to sit backwards on the couch, watching his father.

"Can two guys be in love, dad?"

"What? Yeah--I mean... yeah." John crossed his arms over his chest. For the umpteenth time in the last six years--as he stared at his curious son, ready to ask all the questions a father dreaded--he wished Mary were here to default to. 'Go ask your mother' seemed eager to slip off his tongue.

"Like, the way a guy loves a girl?" Dean pressed, now leaning on the back of the couch. John sighed heavily.

"Well--yes. It's called gay. Some guys just--some girls too--it's uh... Well I mean... It's not that--we shouldn't..." John paused and rubbed the back of his neck, collecting his thoughts. He could feel Dean's eyes on him, curious and looking to him for answers. John felt his stomach drop as he found himself wishing Dean were asking about sex between vampires or how a wraith reproduced; but no. Dean simply wanted to know about human sex, a topic John had feared breaching with his children since he first saw the pregnancy test sitting in the bathroom.

"Some people are gay." John offered confidently. "Some people are straight." He held out his hands as if holding one label in each palm. "And--they're all people, just with different, uh, tastes. If you ever meet somebody who's--who's gay, Dean, you treat them just like you'd treat anybody else. It's weird and--but they're people."

Dean smiled just a little as John nodded and turned back to the kitchen. For a few seconds he had felt like a normal kid and for a few seconds his dad had seemed like a normal dad, weird about the 'sex talk'. Which Dean didn't need--not that he'd tell his father--but so many nights watching his brother while dad hunted and a boy got curious. He turned back around and clicked off the TV. He grabbed the blanket he'd been sitting on, shifted to lay down against the arm-rest and buried himself deep enough in the blanket to consider himself a Dean burrito.

He wanted to sleep but his mind was wide awake. Why /did/ he think the two guys were in love? His mind wandered back to a few close calls--two in particular which hadn't stood out to him then, but were like beacons to his wandering mind now.

They had saved a woman from a demon but they hadn't been in time to save her husband. She had come to the motel to thank John for what he'd done. Dean distinctly remembered his dad hugging the woman for a long time. She had cried and hugged him back. Dean almost thought he remembered his dad rubbing her back, stroking her hair, whispering to her.

Then there was the man, the young guy who had just lost his brother. He came to the motel to insist that John take him on the hunt. He wanted revenge. Dean had been in the back room with Sammy, spying on his father. He remembered the young man starting to cry. He remembered how painful it looked, how distraught the man looked. His dad hadn't hugged the guy though, didn't even touch him. John had just frowned and listened, nodding as the man laid out his pain.

Men were strong. Dean opened his eyes and stared at the ceiling, thinking about his father's words. Didn't need hugs--you'll grow out of it. Dean felt his stomach twist unpleasantly. He still wanted a hug from his father every night he returned to the motel rooms in one piece. Maybe it was time Dean grew up and started acting like a man. Maybe not wanting hugs didn't come with age, maybe age came with making yourself not want hugs.

Dean smiled just a little as he shifted back down into the blanket. Maybe--if he stopped acting like a kid, like a girl--dad would finally take him on an actual hunt instead of making him babysit Sammy.

#

"The time has come, I think, when we must recognize bisexuality as a normal form of human behavior... we shall not really succeed in discarding the straitjacket of our cultural beliefs about sexual choice if we fail to come to terms with the well-documented, normal human capacity to love members of both sexes."

\- Margaret Mead, Redbook

 

Dean blames the hunter lifestyle on early development of his sex drive. More to-the-point he blames a single hunter: Marc. Dean never got a last name. He still thinks he was too young to have truly discovered masturbation and what exactly it was about the idea of naked bodies that made him tingle. He still blames it all on Marc.

John needed help to take down a selkie. It was a strange creature--rare in the states--and John just couldn't handle it on his own, not without expertise. Marc was in the area, doing the same thing, and joining forces seemed like the most natural solution. A lot of 'I-don't-really-know' actually turned into a lot of 'what-we-do-know, together'. It's not so much the hunt that Dean remembers--since he mostly had to sit that one out--it's after they killed the damned thing. Marc offers to treat them all to dinner, and John accepts.

Dean can't remember the name of the place but it kind of feels to him like an Applebee's or Friday's or something, big chain, expensive crappy food. John is next to Marc in a large booth, and Sammy and Dean close the semi-circle.

"Hey, John--John," Marc said under his breath, elbowing John in the side and nodding across the room. "Betcha she's one hundred percent natural human-grade."

John chuckled lightly into his beer. Dean turned around, curiously following the line of Marc's sight. One of the waitresses. Dean narrowed his eyes studiously at her. He knew the tone of Marc's voice--he does watch tv--and so he appropriately dragged under-age eyes over her hips, her short skirt and the bare back of her knees that show, then back up to the dangerously low dip on her t-shirt. Dean's palms felt sweaty and his mouth went dry. He looked away but not before Marc caught the look.

"Boy's got good taste." Marc said with a wink in Dean's direction. "That is a mighty fine woman."

"How do you know?" Sammy ventured, quietly, from behind his chocolate milk. "You've never met her."

"I don't have to meet her," Marc answered, and it's not sexist--it's honest. "She's got just enough class to know how to dress to appropriately pique a man's interest without laying it all out for him. She'd want something long, committed, but with enough talk and flirting, she'd put out."

There was a soft snort from John and he shook his head.

"So what you're saying is..." Dean started, then lowered his voice to a conspiratorial whisper, "she's fine... for /sex/?"

That gets a laugh out of both John and Marc, but Sammy just made a disgusted face before blowing bubbles into his drink.

"I think you're a little too young to be thinking about sex yet, Dean." John warned, though his face is a smile behind his beer as he finishes it off.

"Nonsense. No such thing. Sex is natural--sex drives us, man." Marc waved off John's attempt at parenting like a honest man. He leaned forward and grins at Dean. Dean felt like he was in a TV show. There was something about Marc that resonated with him--he was so damned /cool/. His hair was slicked back, his jawline dark and stubbled, he wore tight jeans and a leather coat that was just about the noisiest thing Dean ever heard. He smelled kinda like dirt and Dean couldn't help but feel like he wanted to grow up to be /just like him/. Dean's mouth went dry, his palms sweaty.

"Don't ever pass up sex, kid, and don't let people fool you with all that love crap. I'm sure love exists--out there, somewhere far away from guys like us. But sex? That's real. That's actuality. That's attainable. You don't have to worry about keeping your ass safe or keeping your head down or keeping salt lines on every god-damned entrance to a motel room for one damned night. You see--women aren't taught that. Women are supposed to be moms and house-wives and it just makes everything complicated. Young girls are taught that sex and love have gotta be the same thing, right? When's the last time a guy ever said that? Huh? That's cause it's not true. It's one big damned cycle of women either being purists saving themselves for marriage, or women being outright sluts. There are a few of a rare breed out there--like that waitress I'd bet--who understand that sex is just sex. No strings gotta be attached. You listen to me, kid, and you listen good--when you take up your daddy's job, you never pass up a girl like that. Sex is as close as you're ever gonna get to heaven. Best thing you'll ever do with yourself."

Dean's smile is so big it hurts his face. His eyes were wide and they moved from Marc to his father. John is grinning ear-to-ear and Dean realized he knows that look. That's a look that says John Winchester understands and agrees. It's... not a look Dean sees often. But for sex? For /lots/ of sex? Apparently John agrees with that; he doesn't give Marc that look he gives Dean when Dean steps out of line or does something wrong.

"You'll be sloppy at first but it's pretty easy. There'll be this day when you think you know all there is about sex and then you'll meet a woman. She's gonna rock your world. She's gonna teach you things about sex they don't have names for. Then she's gonna stomp on your heart and wink at'cha as she walks out. Actually, you might meet a few women like that, Dean. Women are better at sex than men are--true fact--you just gotta find a woman who's not looking to be a housewife, and open to taking new students."

Dean grinned as Marc raised his glass, signalling across the room for another. Dean felt that strange lump in his throat as he watched Marc smirk. He glanced over to the /mighty fine/ waitress and the lump sunk to his stomach, made him shift in his seat.

"I bet there are some guys who are better at sex." Dean ventured, trying to talk the way Marc does like he's got a secret that everybody wants to know but that he's just not telling, "and I betcha they'll teach you a lot too."

Dean doesn't quite understand the look he received from Marc. The hunter looked at him for a moment, then glanced to John and eventually, silently back to sipping at his beer. Dean frowned.

"Dean, you're too young to be thinking about sex."


	2. 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A few choice quotes and I want to explore sexuality. It’s not gay or straight, it’s not even bi. It’s love and the details don’t matter.
> 
> Or
> 
> A look through Dean Winchester's defining moments, leading up to the dawning of a realization in a man who would have described himself as 'mainly heterosexual'.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This will be multi-chapter and there will be porn/smut/sex whatever you want to call it at the end. I just want to explore a few avenues I haven't seen anyone tackle yet. People are stuck on labeling Dean and I wanted to get rid of the labels.

"The term ‘homosexuality’ was in fact not coined until 1869, and before that time, the strict dichotomy between ‘gay’ and ‘straight’ did not yet exist. Attraction to, and sexual activity with other men was thought of as something you did, not something you were. It was a behavior — accepted by some cultures and considered sinful by others."

\- Bosom Buddies: A Photo History of Male Affection, by Brett & Kate McKay 

 

"There is no other way out!"

Dean narrowed his eyes, listening to the rise in his father's voice. He knew that tone. In fact he almost preferred to hear it in a life or death situation versus in the calm quiet of a motel room when Dean has screwed up... again. But at least here it's not directed at him. Dean glanced to the three young men who took a dare and ended up with their lives on the line, he then looked to Bobby, frowning in agreement with what was to come.

"But--we can't... fight ghosts!" Shouted one of the boys. The three of them stood shoulder-to-shoulder in varying stages of denial and fear. Dean tried to keep down a smirk of pride. They had to be his age, still in high school, and they were practically pissing themselves. Dean had known this his whole life. Sure ghosts were scary but man... at least he never acted like that.

"Actually, you can." John said through gritted teeth, loading his shotgun noisily. Bobby turned to the boys as Dean made sure his own gun was ready.

"Put on your big-boy pants now, children." Bobby said and though his words were condescending, his voice was soft. "You ain't got much of a choice at this point. Now me an' John and Dean here do this for a livin'. We'll getcha out safe, but just in case... any of you boys ever used a gun?"

Dean glanced up to see the boys exchange looks. He scoffed a little and earned a dark look from his father. He promptly wiped the grin from his face and turned away.

"I'll take that as a no." Bobby sighed. He reached out and grabbed Dean's arm, turning the boy to gain access to the bag on Dean's shoulder. Dean watched as much as he could as Bobby pulled out three iron rods and passed them to the civilians.

"All right then. You get a good look at me, Dean and John here. Anything that comes at you out there that ain't us--swing. It won't kill 'em but it'll stop 'em for a few minutes."

Dean shifted the weight of the bag on his shoulder as the three boys looked at their new weapons. The tallest one shook his head, looking sick, and grabbed his friend's sleeve.

"I can't--I can't do this!"

"Calm down, dude."

"Ghosts, man! I can't--you can't fight ghosts!"

"Knock it off!" The boy on the right quickly pulled his sleeve out of his friend's grasp. He almost curled in on himself standing, breathing in short quick gasps.

Dean looked up at Bobby.

"These kids are gonna get themselves killed, Bobby." He whispered under his breath. Bobby sighed.

"Stop actin' like a bunch of ladies and let's get movin'!" Bobby said, putting a hand on the kid in the middle. "Look, I know this sucks but you just gotta man up and accept your responsibility in this. You kids broke in here, you kids started this, now you gotta finish it. You can cry and throw your little fit later, ok? Right now you gotta be good soldiers or you're not makin' it out alive. The three of us know what we're doin' but we ain't exactly used to towin' civilians."

The pep talk seemed to straighten the boys out, and John wasn't waiting any longer. Dean quickly lifted his rifle as his father kicked open the door into the main warehouse. Honestly it looked like the set of a slasher flick. It used to be a shipping dock, a half-way house for items delivered from over-seas before their buyers came to pick them up: now it was an empty building, bigger than most Wal-Marts Dean had seen, and empty save rows upon rows of empty shelves and wooden crates.

John took the lead, as was discussed. Bobby nodded the boys forward and Dean joined them while Bobby took up the rear. It was slow going at first. John walked fast, Dean tried to keep up with him and the boys he was leading out ended up running into him on more than one occasion. Things started quietly but they didn't stay that way. Bobby suddenly flew across the room, ankles catching on a shelf of crates and exploding into a thick cloud of dust. Dean hesitated as John quickly waved him and the civilians forward.

They'd broken into a run as John vanished into the cloud of smoke. They sped up as they heard the gun fire three times. Dean could see the door ahead and just as the thought 'we're gonna make it' raced through his mind, he collided with something solid. He stumbled backwards, knocking into the three boys behind him. He lifted his head just in time to catch a fuzzy view of the ghost as it back-handed him to the floor. He hit the ground hard, rolled once and lost a grip on his gun. He heard the boys scream behind him and forced himself up to his elbows.

The ghost had a grip on one of the boys and had lifted him well off the floor. The boy's friends could only stare in shock as the ghost strangled their friend. Dean grimaced as he lunged forward for his gun. He climbed to one knee and took aim.

"Over here, asshole." Dean growled. The ghost turned to look at him and Dean pulled the trigger. Dean was quickly on his feet again, hoisting the boy up by his arm.

"C'mon we gotta make a break for it. That won't kill him but it's gonna piss him off. We need to be long gone before he comes back." Dean didn't wait for a response. He looped the boy's arm over his shoulder and took off towards the door as fast as he could go. The boy hanging onto him for dear life was essentially dead weight, unable to get his feet under him. It was a tense couple of seconds but Dean kicked open the door at last and the group was safe in the unforgiving winter air.

Dean unceremoniously dropped the boy onto the grass on a hill just outside the building. He shouted an order for the three of them to remain there before lifting his gun and running full tilt back into the building. The dust cloud had dispersed enough that Dean got a decent--if foggy--view of the room. He could easily spot the toppled shelf but he could see no sign of his father or Bobby from where he stood. He cursed under his breath, lifted his gun and stalked forward. He made sure to keep his back to the shelves, to the walls, hanging on to whatever protection he could get. A sudden hand on his shoulder, another over his mouth and he was pulled off his feet and behind a metal unit.

"Shhh," Dean nodded, heart starting to beat once more as Bobby released him.

"Kids are outside." Dean whispered.

"You should be with them." John hissed, fumbling in his pockets to produce a pack of playing cards with a small red stain in one corner. "They might run off before we have a chance to urge caution."

Dean frowned and looked away. His father struck a match and the hiss was immediately echoed by a loud groan. John was suddenly pulled off his feet by the ghost, an arm thick as a tree trunk wrapped over his neck and pinned him to an incorporeal--but somehow still very solid--chest. Dean scrambled forward and picked up the matchbox while Bobby made a grab for the cards. Dean struck a match, glanced up to his father and tossed it down as Bobby released the pack of cards. The moment the flames licked at the box John Winchester was released. Bobby and Dean quickly stood to help John up as the ghost coiled in on himself, yowling like a feral beast as the flames of Hell rose up to claim him.

The three hunters made a calm, quiet exit from the building. When they found the area outside to be deserted, John fixed Dean with a vicious look. Bobby shook his head and crossed his arms over his chest.

"I don't think we gotta worry about them. This thing scared 'em shitless. I doubt they'll open their mouths. Pansies." Bobby snorted.

#

"Males do not represent two discrete populations, heterosexual and homosexual. The world is not to be divided into sheeps and goats. Not all things are black nor all things white. It is a fundamental of taxonomy that nature rarely deals with discrete categories. Only the human mind invents categories and tries to force facts into separated pigeon-holes. The living world is a continuum in each and every one of its aspects. The sooner we learn this concerning human sexual behavior, the sooner we shall reach a sound understanding of the realities of sex."

-Alfred Kinsey, Sexual Behaviour in the Human Male (1948))

 

"Ok, I'll bite. Why are you grinning like that?" Sammy sighed, glancing over at Dean. The boys were laying on their backs on a park bench, their father was finishing the check-out from their latest motel nearby. They had started star-gazing. Sam had tried to get into it but he could tell Dean was fishing for something... that smug look on his face, the way he kept /sighing/ like everything was perfect. Eventually Sammy just couldn't take it anymore, so he bit.

"Huh? What do you mean?"

"Oh don't give me that, asshole." Sam sat up. At ten years old he was starting to catch up to Dean in terms of height, he enjoyed bragging about it. "You've got this dumb grin on your face and you keep doing this... this..." Sam took in a deep breath and sighed like a Disney Princess with all the exaggeration of a stage play. Dean laughed.

"Oh, /that/." Dean said coyly, sitting up to join his brother. Sammy rolled his eyes and mouthed a mimic of his response. "Can you keep a secret?"

"Yes." Sam said, forcing a grump into his tone. He'd been led on by his brother and he didn't like taking the bait, but he'd be damned if he didn't want to know a secret. A secret from Dean, none-the-less. 

Dean grinned and looked around, as if there were anyone nearby to eavesdrop. He leaned in and motioned Sam to do the same. Sam couldn't help but cast a few nervous glances around himself before leaning in. Dean put a hand on Sam's shoulder, cupped the other in front of his brother's ear.

"I had /sex/."

"What!" Sam said, bolting upright and staring. The smirk on Dean's face said enough. "No way! When?"

"Last night. While dad was out and you were sleeping."

"Nuh uh. No way."

"Oh Sammy, Sammy." Dean shook his head. "You just don't understand adult concepts. You'll get it someday."

"Dude, no, ew. Sex is gross. Girls are gross. And you're lying."

"She wasn't a girl, she was a /woman./ I'm not lying."

"Prove it!"

"How am I supposed to do that." Dean side-eyed his brother.

"What--what was it like?" Sammy asked in a reverent whisper.

"Awesome!"

"Ewww." Sam stuck out his tongue and shook his head.

"You asked, Sam."

"Asked what?" John piped in from behind the boys, startling them both. He grinned as they turned to look at him, mortified that they'd been overheard.

"Dean had sex." Sam said automatically, as if they were in trouble and tattling on Dean would save his hide.

"Sam!" Dean shouted. 

"Dean, don't lie to Sam." John said, but he was chuckling. He nodded towards the car.

"I'm not lying." Dean muttered under his breath as he and Sam hopped down. He was stopped by a hand on his shoulder. He glanced up at his dad and swallowed hard.

"Ok. All right. Then tell me something only guys who've had sex will know." John leaned over just slightly and tilted his head, indicating Dean should whisper said detail to him. Dean hesitated a moment then leaned in.

"The way everybody talks about it... it seems like it should last longer, but it's really short."

John stood up, laughing harder than he'd laughed in a long time. He left his hand on Dean's shoulder, clasping his son affectionately. Sam and Dean exchanged looks to each other before looking back to their father, confused. John took a moment, wiped the tears from his eyes and shoved Dean playfully towards the Impala.

"I hope you at least used protection, Dean."

Sam's eyes grew wide as he turned to look at Dean. He really /did/ have sex! Dean grinned, a smirk really, smug.

"Yeah, I mean... Of course." Dean shrugged.

"Atta boy." John laughed, shaking his head.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A few choice quotes and I want to explore sexuality. It’s not gay or straight, it’s not even bi. It’s love and the details don’t matter.
> 
> Or
> 
> A look through Dean Winchester's defining moments, leading up to the dawning of a realization in a man who would have described himself as 'mainly heterosexual'.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This will be multi-chapter and there will be porn/smut/sex whatever you want to call it at the end. I just want to explore a few avenues I haven't seen anyone tackle yet. People are stuck on labeling Dean and I wanted to get rid of the labels.
> 
> This chapter contains the following: Graphic sexual content, fingering, blow job, brief bigotry.

Bisexuality should be the norm...It's the cure for many problems. I don't believe in gay versus straight. The message of the gay liberation movement should have been freedom of sexuality, not antagonism toward sexuality other than gay sex. Most people are going to want to be straight, this is true, because most people breed, and nature wants us to breed. However, I believe in the liberation of all avenues of pleasure, and I want all straight people to have their options open without it implicating them. The impulses are there if they aren't repressed, so people should choose to live without those labels.

-Camille Paglia, Playboy interview, May 1995

 

Dean grunted slightly as his back was slammed into the door of his motel room. The rather aggressive woman attached to his lips didn't seem to care how far she'd jammed the doorknob into his side, she seemed determined to meld her tongue with his. Dean didn't mind--not completely--and he grinned into her amorous attack.

"Can--I at least--get the--door open?" He managed to gasp in between assaults. The woman giggled in a lust-heavy voice and backed off for a few seconds, with her mouth anyway. Her hands remained firmly on Dean's chest, rubbing at his pectorals from under a rather thin t-shirt.

The creaked as Dean turned the knob and without warning the woman started her assault once more. She gripped Dean's shoulders tightly and leap into his arms, wrapping her legs possessively around his hips. He stumbled backwards, teetering for a second, until he caught his balance. He slipped both hands around to grip the woman's ass, squeezing playfully with a smirk on his face.

He didn't bother hitting the lights--who really had sex with the lights on anyway?--but he did have the forethought to kick the door closed. He shuffled over to the bed as gracefully as he could with his tongue doing the tango, legs around his waist, and his erection threatening to rip through the zipper and get to work. He tipped his shoulders forward and unceremoniously deposited the woman onto the bed. She giggled, clasping her fingers together lightly--enticingly--above her head as her body bounced in the aftershocks. Dean's eyes were firmly on her chest, barely contained in a dress she looked like she'd been sewn into.

"Well, don't keep me waiting. I've been undressing you for hours now, don't you think I've been patient enough to earn the real thing?"

"Yes, ma'am." Dean chirped, quickly shrugging out of his jacket and the button-up shirt which now had decidedly fewer buttons. He turned around to put his back to the woman, smirking like an imp. She rose up onto her elbows and licked her lips suggestively at him as he glanced over his shoulder at her. Slowly--deliberately--he pulled the t-shirt up over his torso, over his shoulders and off. He slowly turned around.

"Oh my." The woman whispered, lifting her eyebrows. "That's far better than my imagination."

"Not the uh--creative type, eh?" Dean growled, crawling onto the bed atop her. She laughed.

"Actually I'm /quite/ creative," she punctuated this statement by suddenly--and rather roughly--grabbing his erection through his jeans, "just didn't expect the scars, hun." Dean tipped his head forward and groaned into her dark auburn hair. His hips rocked forward a few times, grinding himself against her hand.

He didn't have much to rut against for long as the woman slid her hand over the front of his jeans. Dean placed a few rough, sucking kisses along the side of the woman's neck as she unbuttoned his jeans far faster than he would have been able to.

"You've ... got experience. I like that." Dean purred into her ear.

"With men's jeans? Pssht, it's like I was born in them." She chuckled, prying open the jeans and pulling them down as Dean offered a soft laugh as well.

Dean slid backwards and off the bed to shimmy the rest of the way out of his pants. He attempted to climb back onto the bed but was halted by a hand on his lower stomach. He lifted his eyebrows. The woman grinned at him in a way that made him feel like prey and he liked it. She nodded towards the bed, pushing him insistently, and he obeyed. He sat on the edge and leaned back, pupils blown wide as the woman moved to crouch in front of him.

He tried to keep his eyes on the woman but they rolled into the back of his head as a firm grip took hold of him. His head rolled back as she pumped his length a few times before leaning in and putting her gorgeous mouth to work. One of his hands slid forward on the bed to grip at her hair, riding the bobbing of her head. Dean had been on the receiving end of quite a few blow-jobs in his time but something about this was different; new; exciting. It was like this woman didn't just understand how a penis worked, it was like she /knew/.

Dean tried not to think on just how many partners she must have had in order to learn her techniques. He liked a woman with experience but even cars needed retiring after a certain mileage. Except his Baby, but she was always the exception, wasn't she? Also Dean kept her in top shape and honestly who was to say that this woman... Dean's thoughts were abruptly pulled back to the present as he felt something... /also new/.

There were two fingers--obviously from her hand--in her mouth alongside his cock. They rubbed up and down his length and warred with her tongue around his head. It was pretty damned awesome. He groaned slightly as she slowly withdrew her fingers, making sure to leave ghost-like touches along his length as she did. He let his head fall back and breathed out a groan towards the ceiling. Once more the woman did not keep him wanting for long, as Dean soon felt the slick fingers over his testicles. He grinned and considered letting her know exactly how good she was doing, when her fingers continued down... and didn't stop.

"Woah!" Dean jerked, fingers tightening into the woman's hair as a finger traced his, well, asshole. He swallowed hard against the sight of a woman--mouthful of his shaft--staring up at him in confusion. Reluctantly she pulled back, licking her lips and intentionally swiping the tip of her tongue over his head.

"Never tried that before? Really? I'm... I'm surprised."

"You're surprised that I've never had anything in my ass, really?"

"Well, yeah." The woman grinned crookedly. "I mean a guy like you has definitely seen his fair share of things. I bet you've tried just about everything. You're confident and collected. Meeting up with me, suggesting this little... retreat... I figured for sure you'd be into this."

"Well, I'm--I'm not."

"Oh, oh I see how this is." The woman nodded. Dean frowned as she turned to rest her cheek against his thigh. Was he honestly holding a conversation with a woman who's chin was inches from his dick? She was talking to him from his crotch.

"You're all about control in the bedroom, hmm? Never been on the receiving end? Have you ever even... /tried/?" She held up a finger and twirled it slowly to illustrate. "You might like it."

"I--might /like/ it?" Dean sputtered. "What in Hell gives you that idea?"

"Hun, /all/ guys like it, even if they won't admit it. You know that G spot thing people are always raving about? Well, guys have one too--it's on the inside--and with a few inches you can reach it and let me tell you, the orgasms are mind-blowing. Trust me, I've seen it all."

Dean frowned. The woman lazily stroked a hand up and down Dean's thigh as she let him think. The hunter's mind was moving at warp speed. He'd learned over the years to trust confident women in bed and it wouldn't be the first time he'd agreed to do something he never thought he'd do. Truth be told he actually had ended up enjoying most of what he'd agreed to. But this? In his /ass/? His thoughts seemed to halt as he recalled having 'gone through the back door' with a few of his one night stands. Sure they were women and things down there worked differently but they'd all told him it felt good. Something about nerve endings or someshit. Dean had to admit he couldn't see why a woman's would be much different from a man's.

He sighed and nodded. No-one was ever going to hear about it--so he might as well try. He thought about giving her verbal permission but held his tongue. She could tell by his expression--he hoped--that he was in. His hesitation stemmed from the phrase 'just go slow' stuck on his tongue and there was no way in Hell Dean Fucking Winchester was going to say 'just go slow' to a woman in the bedroom.

Dean was eased back into the act with part two of the best blow job he had ever received. After a few moments he felt the tension ebb away even when the fingers returned /there/. He grit his teeth against the odd sensation, warring with himself. Part of him wanted to continue to deny that it was weird and stupid and did not in any way feel good; but the other part of him kind of found it arousing. His mind was wiped blank with pleasure as the woman swallowed around him.

It took him a moment--coming down from the sensation--to realize she had used the swallow as a distraction, and he now had a finger in his ass. Surprisingly, it didn't feel that bad. He wanted to shift, he made a slight face, but those talented lips and that marvelous tongue were still warring with his erection and he couldn't argue. He felt the finger move and shifted his focus to the tongue against his head. He tilted his head down to watch the back of the woman's head when suddenly his vision went white. His body spasmed and he gasped. Had he not been in more control he knew he would have just come, in an embarrassing display of shock.

He felt the lips around his shaft tighten in a smile. He took a breath but his voice gave out on him as the node was struck again. This time he let out a noise which was more embarrassing than the finger in his ass. He moved to grip the woman's hair with both hands. She swallowed over him again and struck his prostate for the third time.

"E-enough." Dean growled, voice hoarse, holding onto the woman's hair for dear life. "You want any action and you're gonna have to stop, cause if you do that again I can't hold back." Dean supplied, breathless as the woman looked at him curiously. Her expression softened and she slowly pulled /all/ of herself away from Dean.

"Then let's get this show on the road." She purred.

Dean smirked, watching as she stood up slowly. His eyes trailed like a snake over the curve of her hips in the skin tight dress. His eyes wandered inward and took only a second to recognize the bulge against her thigh. He shot upright.

"What is that!" He shouted, pointing at the offending object.

"What's what?" The woman halted, having started to slip one shoulder free of the dress.

"You know what!" Dean hissed, standing and pointing again. "You're a-a dude?"

"Well, duh." The man narrowed his eyes, scanning Dean's face. "Are you--really? How could you not have known! You talked the talk!"

"What in Hell are you talking about?" Dean could only stare.

"You said I had 'broad shoulders', you said you liked a girl who had 'secrets', you said you wanted something you 'wouldn't soon forget'. It's lingo, hun. The joke about the zipper? About never being on the receiving end?"

"Oh. My. God." Dean looked away.

"Yeah. Hun, I thought you knew. I was reading all the right signals." The man reached out and put a hand on Dean's upper arm. Dean quickly recoiled. He stared at the other man as if he'd been burned. He lifted a hand and pointed at the door.

"Out."

"You're kidding."

"Out!"

"Fine. Fine." The man put his hands in the air and moved to leave. "You need to loosen up, hun. Life's too short to be taken so seriously."

"Look I don't need your advise or philosophical bullshit, ok? Just go."

"I'm going." The man paused as he opened the door. He glanced over his shoulder and waited until Dean made hesitant eye contact. "And look, I don't mean to echo R. Kelly but: Your mind is tellin' /you/ no, but your body is telling /me/ yes."

#

Searching for the gay masculinity may seem, on the surface, like a fruitless journey. Our society, through the use of ubiquitous stereotypes and attempts at humor, depicts the homosexual man as completely lacking masculine characteristics. R. W. Connell notes that our “[p]atriarchal culture has a simple interpretation of gay men: they lack masculinity.

-Searching for a Gay Masculinity, Grimmel College

 

"Sammy," Dean snorted, barely able to hold in a bark of laughter. "Sammy."

"What, Dean?" Sam looked up sharply. He'd had about enough of his brother for one week. It was bad enough they had no leads on their father, but Dean had been nothing short of intolerable in the past twenty four hours. Sam narrowed his eyes at the way Dean chewed his hamburger--not so much because he did so with all the class of a neanderthal--but because of that stupid, smug, shit-eating grin that was plastered on his face whenever he was judging someone or making fun of someone.

"Look," Dean nodded across the diner, "back booth."

Sam sighed in resignation. He leaned back in his chair and stretched his arms over his head, giving him an opportunity to scope the room and booth in question without looking too suspicious. He had hoped it was related to the case, he should have known it wasn't. He frowned when all he saw was two men, obviously enjoying a romantic dinner together. Sam dropped his arms and fixed Dean with an unimpressed scowl.

"I think he's singin' to him." Dean pressed, smirk widening.

"C'mon dude, really? Really? Leave them alone."

"What? I'm just sayin'. It's funny."

"Dean, they look like they're in love, ok? Just leave it alone. They're probably happy. Happy and used to ignoring asshole bigots like you."

"Asshole /bigot/? I'm not a bigot."

"Are you sure? Because laughing about two dudes in love sure sounds like bigotry to me."

Dean scoffed. He scowled at Sammy and was rewarded with a like expression.

"Look, just because you're threatened by your own feminine side doesn't mean--"

"Woah-woah-woah. What? /Threatened/? By my /feminine/ side? Dude. Not awesome. I don't have a feminine side. I'm all man."

"Uh huh. Good for you, Bruticus."

"Bruticus? Fitting, I guess."

"Why because you're a neanderthal?"

"Nah because I'm a hunter. I'm a warrior. I bet I could kick their asses back over the rainbow."

Sam sighed. He leaned forward onto the table, folding his hands and lowering his voice. He lifted his eyebrows until Dean took the hint and leaned forward as well.

"One--there is no reason you need to threaten violence to make yourself feel better. Two--the patch on the side of the pouch in the booth with them is clearly a Martial Arts badge. I bet he could kick /your/ ass back to the 1920s."


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A few choice quotes and I want to explore sexuality. It’s not gay or straight, it’s not even bi. It’s love and the details don’t matter.
> 
> Or
> 
> A look through Dean Winchester's defining moments, leading up to the dawning of a realization in a man who would have described himself as 'mainly heterosexual'.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This will be multi-chapter and there will be porn/smut/sex whatever you want to call it at the end. I just want to explore a few avenues I haven't seen anyone tackle yet. People are stuck on labeling Dean and I wanted to get rid of the labels.

Being a man is expressed more readily in the imperative than in the indicative. The order so often heard—‘Be a man’—implies that it does not go without saying that manliness may not be as natural as one would think...Being a man implies a labor, an effort that does not seem to be demanded of a woman. It is rare to hear the words ‘be a woman’ as a call to order, whereas the exhortation to the little boy, the male adolescent, or the adult male is common in most societies.

\- Elisabeth Banditer

 

Dean shook his head almost violently, balling a hand into a fist and almost sending it through the bathroom mirror. The rage in the pit of his stomach bubbled up, threatening to overwhelm him, and left him leaning on the sink for support gaping like a fish out of water. He didn't like that Sammy had found him like that, but he couldn't blame his brother for the concerned expression.

"Dean? You ok?"

"Yeah. I'm-I'm fine, Sammy."

"You uh, you don't look fine." 

Dean dipped his head for a moment and took a deep breath. He slowly stood up and moved away from the sink. He crossed his arms over his chest and shrugged.

"Well, I am, so..."

"This is about dad, isn't it?" Sam pressed, eyebrows knitted together in worry. Sam had always been the only one who truly saw how worked up Dean could get over their father. It was--among many things--why he couldn't get along with the man now that he knew everything, now that he understood. In Sam's mind neither of them would ever be good enough for John. Sam had come to terms with that and he'd stopped trying to live up to impossible standards. But his brother? Dean would never realize that. Dean would always try and he would always fail and Sam would always be the only one who saw the pieces.

"Dean..." Sam pressed as his brother's eyes slid away from him.

"Look, Sam, I said I was fine. All right? Drop it."

Dean shouldered past his brother roughly. His forward motion was stopped as Sam grabbed his left arm. Dean turned to glare at the offending hand, then slowly up to meet Sammy's eyes.

"I'm not gonna just drop it, Dean. How many times do I have to tell you, you can't keep doing this to yourself? You get yourself all worked up for what? For his /approval/? Dean, when has he /ever/ done anything for us, really? Why do you look /up/ to him so much?"

"Because he's our /dad/, Sam." Dean roughly pulled his arm out of his brother's grasp. "He raised us the best way he knew how. He kept us safe, all right? He taught us a hell of a lot more than most kids know. We're prepared for just about anything, Sam, and it's because of him."

"Uh huh, you keep telling yourself that, Dean."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"I saw the look on your face when he mentioned the Impala." Sam paused as Dean looked away, eyelids fluttering at the blow. "What kind of man teaches his son how to put a car back together from scrap only to insult him about it?"

"Sammy--"

"No, Dean. It's an honest question. He puts us down /all the time/. He puts /you/ down all the time. He put way too much responsibility on your shoulders and somehow you don't see that. You practically raised me, Dean! Do you know what other kids your age were doing when you were tucking me into bed? Playing outside. Instead of cooking their baby brothers dinner and making sure they took their meds, they had watergun fights and snuck out to pool parties and saw really crappy horror movies that scared the shit out of them but they pretended not to care to look macho. Other kids get to be kids, Dean. Dad took that from you and I don't think either of you realize what that's done."

"I don't have to listen to this."

"No. Of course you don't." Sam crossed his arms over his chest. Dean turned and grabbed his coat. "Just do what you always do, Dean. Take it like a man. Swallow the hurt and bury it all. That's the best option. Don't deal with it, don't address it. Just... do what dad does."

"And what's that, Sammy? Huh?" 

"Hide, Dean. Hide. That's what dad does, that's what he's always done. He hides from the pain and he pretends it's not there. He lets his need for revenge swallow him up until he can't feel anything but anger."

"Yeah, well, maybe it's not so bad. Better than wallowing in self pity."

"Dean, being emotional once in a while, letting things out, that's not self pity. That's normal. That's healthy."

"Whatever Sam. I don't need this."

Sam pursed his lips together and dropped his hands to his side. Dean shouldered his jacket with a sneer. Sam made no move to stop his older brother as the motel room door was pulled open, then slammed shut in Dean's wake.

#

Opposites attract...If someone is attracted to the masculine, then that person must be feminine—if not in the body, then somehow in the mind. These beliefs are not particularly coherent (for instance, they have difficulty with the fact that gay men are attracted to each other) but they are pervasive. Accordingly they create a dilemma about masculinity for men who are attracted to other men. 

\- R.W.Connell

 

Dean frowned hard at the fire in front of him. Like everything else in Purgatory the colors seemed muted but Dean could still see a faint orange glow on his extended hands.

"You're sure this isn't gonna draw attention?" He moved his eyes from the fire to Benny. The vampire smirked, sliding off his jacket as he prepared to settle in across the flames from Dean.

"No more than us'al." Benny cooed in his soft southern drawl. "Your humanity is like a lighthouse out here. Fire pales in comparasin."

"If I didn't know any better, Benny, I'd say you were hittin' on me." Dean chuckled. He hadn't known the vampire long--long enough for both of them to have saved each other's asses more times than Dean cared to count--but he already felt a familiarity settling in. Benny was /family/ in Dean's mind and the fact that non-human blood ran through Benny's veins didn't cross the hunter's mind most days. The only down-side to finding such comfort in Benny's presence was just that; the comfort. Purgatory was like a war zone where one couldn't blink without being attacked, and yet with Benny around Dean could not remember the last time he'd been so at ease. Not relaxed--per say--but not even the inevitable arrival of Purgatory's other inhabitants could put a damper on his mood.

Unless he stopped to consider that they hadn't seen a single Leviathan since...

"--much reason to."

"Huh?" Dean looked up. Benny had been talking and Dean hadn't heard a word of it. The vampire chuckled.

"Somethin' on your mind, Dean?" Benny's eyes rested lazily on Dean's face, easily able to see the man through the fire. He watched the lines crease at the corner of Dean's lips as the man considered deeply his words. Benny's own mouth turned up in a slight grin. Dean thought he was a master at hiding his inner monologues, his feelings, but Benny could read him like an open book. He had a feeling those close to Dean on the other side could do the same.

"What do you miss most, Benny, about being topside?" 

Benny let out a low hum. He had not expected this. Dean occasionally liked to spout off with the things-he-was-going-to-do-once-they-all-made-it-out-alive but it was rarely intended to be an open topic. Benny had decided early on that it was mostly Dean talking to himself. It was an endless stream of the rhetorical and oddly enough Benny had been content to just listen. He'd never expected an invitation to join in.

"Ya mean aside from bein' hunted ev'ry second of the day an' night?" Benny smirked wide at the look Dean gave him. The vampire chuckled. "I'm gonna have to say, ign'rance."

"Ignorance? The thing you miss most is ignorance?" 

"Ain't that hard t' understand, Dean. Up there it's easy t' let yourself just keep on believin' whatever you want. That folks ain't all bad; that there must'a been somethin' else movin' the pieces. But down here? Nah. Down here it's all pure an' plain and visible. Down here you realize we're all just monsters, ain't we? In the end. I mean, you've seen some shit, brutha, but honestly--you ever seen anyone so happy to be runnin' at you, full tilt, knowin' this is gonna be kill or be killed? It's like kamikaze everywhere you look and this place is fulla believers. That's how ya wanna go--doin' what's natural. It's not so nice t' be confronted with stuff you knew was true but didn't want t' see, you feel me?"

"You mean upstairs you can pretend you're not a monster, but here you're faced with reality."

"You callin' me a monster, Dean?" Benny smiled.

The hunter chuckled at the tone in Benny's voice. He picked a weed from near his feet, stretching out to get comfortable. He began picking at the petals.

"I still don't know your story, Benny, not all of it."

"Not much to tell, I figure. It's gotta be roughly the same for most of us. You meet someone, you fall in love, they trick ya, eventually time pulls you apart and they betray you."

"Yeah. Like every vamp story I've ever heard." Dean shook his head. He tossed the weed into the flames. "You're talking about your uh, maker, right?"

"Mmmhmm," Benny hummed almost pleasantly. He tilted his head just slightly to one side, eyes turning to follow. He glanced up to meet Dean's gaze without moving his head. It had sounded like footsteps in the distance and both men reached for their weapons but were otherwise still.

"It's pretty common, from my understandin'. Especially if your sire isn't mated. You know we do that for life, right?"

"So I've heard." Dean said, rolling his eyes. "Real Twilight of you."

"Twilight?"

"Uh, don't worry about it." Dean laid his blade across his lap, letting his fingers trace the edge. "So, you fell for some vamp and she turned you?"

"More or less. The whole thing... kinda works like a slow seduction. It's not so much about the sex, but about leadin' up to it. I knew something was off about him the first time we met but I--"

"Wait, /him/?" Dean's eyes trailed Benny curiously a moment, as if looking for something he might have missed all the months they had spent together. He seemed baffled as Benny nodded, confused as to why he'd been interrupted.

"Well, yeah. You see, Dean, in the monster world it don't always take a boy and a girl in love t' make babies."

"No, I know that. I just--you said you fell in love with your maker. Your maker was a him?"

"You got a problem with that?" Benny said, his tone not entirely joking. He fixed Dean with a look, tensing a little.

"No I just... I didn't peg you for the type."

"What 'type'?"

"Uh... the type that falls in love with men." Dean was taken aback when Benny snorted. His eyes narrowed slightly and a slight look of offense crossed his features as the vampire began to laugh. "What's so funny?"

"Oh, man. You know I thought I had you pegged but... Brutha, you're ten kinds o' backward."

"What's that mean?"

"You an' your angel." Benny said with a smirk. "Don't tell me you ain't lookin' for this Castiel 'cause--"

"Cas is my /friend/, Benny. He's like a brother to me."

"Man, don't you know it. You know how many times I said that to my maker--how many times he said that to me--before we finally gave up and shacked up?"

"Benny, man!" Dean raised his hands as if to ward off the images assaulting his mind. Benny laughed.

"So you're this desperate to find this angel just 'cause he's your friend?"

"Vampires mate for life but the idea of having a friend worth dying for is foreign?"

"Nah, 'course not. I'm just sayin', from experience, you don't act like somebody lookin' for a lost friend. And honestly, Dean, if you want to convince people you're /just friends/... you better start watching the way you talk about Casteel."

"Castiel." Dean said, before he could stop himself. "Not... not Cas-teel. Cas-Tea-Elle."

"My mistake." Benny purred.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A few choice quotes and I want to explore sexuality. It’s not gay or straight, it’s not even bi. It’s love and the details don’t matter.
> 
> Or
> 
> A look through Dean Winchester's defining moments, leading up to the dawning of a realization in a man who would have described himself as 'mainly heterosexual'.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This will be multi-chapter and there will be porn/smut/sex whatever you want to call it at the end. I just want to explore a few avenues I haven't seen anyone tackle yet. People are stuck on labeling Dean and I wanted to get rid of the labels.
> 
> This chapter starts to see some canon divergence. Set after the end of Season 8.

A few [sociologists] suggested that gay men had already achieved such contact with their feminine sides, which explained what they took to be gay men’s relative ease with intimacy, sensitivity, and emotion. Perhaps homosexual manhood could be a model for heterosexual men, who were, they suggested, still stifled by homophobic fears of expressing emotion or the need for physical contact with other men.

\- Michael Kimmel

 

Benny winced, turning his head away slightly as Dean shouted. It was a primal sound, made strictly for the release of pent up emotion. The vampire sighed in concern as Dean stumbled, throwing out a hand to catch himself on the tree nearby. Benny kicked away the body at Dean's feet and put a hand on the hunter's shoulder.

"Keep it together, brutha. We'll get a break soon."

"Will we? Really?" Dean hissed, spinning and smacking away Benny's hand. "What makes you so sure? It's been six months--six damned months, Benny--and we got nothing! Nothing!"

"Purgatory's a big place, Dean. Real big. Give it more time. We'll--"

"We'll what, Benny?" Dean ran a hand into his hair, smearing dirt and blood along his forehead. "I'm not leaving without him and you're not leaving without me. What if this is it? Until somebody gets the upper hand and sends us--where ever the hell you go when you die here."

"Dean," Benny glanced briefly at the smudge on Dean's forehead before meeting green eyes. "This ain't you. You're tired; it's been a long day. Maybe we should rest?"

"Sure? Why the Hell not? It's not like we're getting anywhere." Dean turned and sliced his blade into the thick trunk behind him. Under the concerned eyes of his companion he fell into a crouch--back to the tree--as if his legs had given out on him. Perched on the balls of his feet he covered his face in his hands, hissing out air through his teeth.

Benny frowned harder. He could see the lines of Dean's body sharpen and tense under the onslaught of realization. Benny was wondering when it would hit Dean--the possibility of failure--and he'd tried to prepare himself for the inevitable. His personal thoughts on finding or not finding the angel he kept to himself, but he care deeply for Dean and it was nearly agonizing to see the crash. Dean tried not to let anything get through his walls and for the most part he succeeded. Benny knew it was just that much deeper, that much more painful, that this had broken Dean's walls enough to permit him a collapse in Benny's presence. He pretended like he hadn't seen the moments when Dean excused himself--the praying, the begging--because clearly those were private moments. But Benny was a vampire in Purgatory, there was very little he was unaware of.

"Dean," Benny knelt down, searched out Dean's gaze. He furrowed his brows together as Dean lifted his head, dropping his hands to hang between his knees. The hunter took a staggered breath and tipped his head back to touch the trunk supporting him.

"I know," Dean said with a sigh. Benny didn't like the small smile that twitched at the corners of Dean's mouth, warring with the quivering in his bottom lip. Dean was holding back tears, swallowing hard at the lump in his throat.

"Man up." Dean said hoarsely, nodding. "This is Purgatory, no room for weakness."

"I'm gonna pretend like you ain't tryin' to quote me and butcherin' my own words, Dean." Benny said with a small smirk. "And in any case, that's not what's gonna happen here." Benny pursed his lips at the confused look Dean gave him. "Look, I understand the need for walls, Dean. I understand the macho man attitude and how it's second nature for you to just, man up, as you put it. But it ain't good for ya. Not when it's bubblin' up like this and spillin' over." Benny glanced over at the severed head nearby. "You see how many hacks it took you to break through that spine? That ain't like you. You're a clean killer, Dean. This was messy. This was passionate."

"I'm not allowed to be passionate about killing these assholes?" Dean whispered, almost as if he was frightened of what Benny was getting at. The vampire imagined; he probably was.

"Come on, Dean. Talk to me, brutha. No more swallowing all this hurt, no more pushin' it down. It's trying to come up an' you're gonna let it."

"Like Hell I am." Dean snapped. He was certainly afraid. "Why should I start letting it out now? Keeping it at bay has always worked in the past. It gets me through the day. Work like what I do--you don't get to sit and talk things out and cope. You have to just suck it up and move on."

"Sure, upstairs. But down here? Dean, man, we got nothin' but time."

Dean met Benny's gaze. For a moment the two looked at each other and in that moment they went through the spectrum of their relationship; from hunter and vampire to tense allies to partners and then to brothers in all but blood. Dean finally looked away and Benny saw him sigh.

"Comin' clean about your feelings don't make you any less of a man, Dean. I used to do the same as you. I put up walls and thought I was stronger for hiding it all."

"Benny, I'm not--"

"When my maker betrayed me, I felt like I could just keep on doin'. But it killed me, keeping it all in. Until I met someone who smacked some sense into me. Andrea showed me that keepin' it in was hiding, runnin'. It takes a brave man to admit to himself he's scared. It takes a damned hero to admit it to someone else."

"I need to find him, Benny." Dean said. It was simple, but Benny would take all he could get.

"We will."

"And if we don't?" Dean dropped his gaze to his shoes, toes dug into the ground for purchase. "I can't fail him again. I'm--I'm the reason he's here. I'm the reason any of this happened to him."

"Seems like he's partially to blame for some of this, Dean. Stories you've told haven't exactly made it seem like he was forced at gunpoint to make some of those decisions."

"He wouldn't have been in a position to have to make those decisions if it wasn't for me. He pulled me outta Hell. He started questioning authority and going against orders and disobeying everything he'd ever been taught because I couldn't leave well enough alone. Because I was selfish. Because I saw the potential for a powerful ally and his blind devotion to a God he'd lost contact with pissed me off." Dean clenched his jaw, voice rising in pitch slightly. He closed his eyes and looked away. "I destroyed him, Benny. He was a god damned angel and a soldier and a believer and I turned him into this... this lost child, this pawn, this... weapon Sammy and I could just call on whenever we needed it."

Benny tried to keep his face concerned but free of judgement as Dean looked up.

"He trusted me, Benny, and I used him. Son of a bitch--I used him and when he needed me to fix a few dings, I wasn't there for him." Dean took a breath. "I need to see him out of this if it's the last damned thing I do. The faith he... he has in me it's painful to look at for too long but--but I feel like I owe him something. I feel like I owe him the opportunity to maybe see me seeing the good he thinks I've got."

#

One of the most obvious characteristics of masculinity is heterosexuality. The definition of gender spontaneously implies sexuality, who does what and with whom.

\- Elisabeth Badinter, XY On Masculine Identity

 

"I think he's finally asleep."

Dean quickly straightened and glanced over the back of the couch. Sam sighed and clapped his hands together quietly, at a loss. Dean watched as his brother steepled fingers at his mouth.

"At least we know he's all right."

"He isn't though, Sam. That's not 'all right'. Not for Cas." Dean turned back around and dropped his head onto the back of the couch. Sam nodded quietly, moving to join Dean. He watched Dean carefully as he sat down.

"He's alive. He's in one piece. He's--"

"Human. Mortal. Fallen." Dean glanced over at Sam.

"We kind of expected that, didn't we? I mean... all the other angels fell."

"Yeah but Cas? Sammy, /Cas/? He always seemed to get by, like us. This shit always just--passed over him."

"Well he's safe here for now. If he's really on the fallens' most wanted list, then this is probably the safest place to be." Sam was taken slightly aback when Dean let out a hoarse laugh. "What?"

"Safe? With us, Sammy? When is anybody ever safe with us?" Dean shook his head. "Before though he had his angel powers to fall back on. Now he's just like us, no, worse. He's a damned angel with no more angel. He's like--"

"A baby in a trench coat?" Sam supplied, a small grin tugging at the corners of his mouth. Dean chuckled and nodded, leaning forward and resting his elbows on his knees.

"Yeah." He shook his head and muttered the phrase again under his breath.

As silence settled in, Sam found himself fishing for something to say. It was odd--to say the least--that he found silence with Dean so awkward. Most of his adult life had been silent moments with Dean in the car, stretching into silent hours honestly, but at that very second he felt... strange. Out of place. Like he was watching something private or like he was being impolite. He cleared his throat.

"You uh... you gonna be ok, Dean?"

"Me?" Dean knitted his brows together and gave his brother a look. "Why are you worried about me? I'm fine. I'm always--"

"Fine, yeah. It's the Winchester motto." Sam nodded. "But really, Dean. This shook you up; you stumbled. It's really not like you to uh... do any of what you did in there." Sam nodded his head gently towards the spare room they'd set up for Cas to sleep in. "So, I'll just ask one more time because I know how this conversation goes... are you gonna be ok?"

Sam turned to look at Dean and was rewarded with a caught glance. He could see the tension in Dean's jaw. He recalled the panic in Dean's voice hours ago, shouting frantically for help, for Sammy to hurry. Dean had been on his way to a bar but he'd never made it. He said he'd found Cas in a crumpled heap of trench coat and blood nearly unconscious and slumped against the Impala. He'd carried him inside and set him against a wall to assess his injuries. It was bad. It had been touch and go, especially once Cas had dropped the bomb; that he was fallen and his grace had been taken from him. He was human. They'd stitched him up while Dean tried to get him to stop apologizing. Eventually Dean had snapped and Sam was sure Dean had never been as honest with him as he was with Cas in those few moments. Dean told Cas he didn't get to die--Dean was too selfish to let that happen. He said Cas hadn't seen but a fleeting second of happiness in his entire ridiculous lifespan and that Dean would march back to Hell willingly before he'd let Cas die without knowing what happy really felt like. Happy without being crazy, he'd added. Cas had seemed sated with that and had put up no fight when escorted to a spare room to sleep.

"Honestly Sammy? I... I don't know." Dean admitted, laughing just slightly at the presumed absurdity of the situation. "It's Cas, it's always Cas and... I'm in a tough spot."

"How do you mean?" Sam said quietly. He was worried too much noise on his end would break whatever spell had just taken hold of his brother. Dean seemed ready to talk, honestly, and about Castiel no less. It was about time too, Sam thought to himself.

"It's been off and on for years but I've just--stopped imagining life without him, you know? He always manages to find us. He always comes back. He's worse than us, really." Dean shook his head, grinning a little sourly. "I think I--need him, Sam. And now that he's /human/? I don't want him around."

Sam's eyes grew wide. He looked taken aback, disgusted.

"Uh, wow, Dean. That's... that's harsh." He looked away and frowned. "After all he's done for us? He becomes a liability and you're just... done?"

"No, Sam. It's for his own good." Dean snapped. "Think about it. We're bad luck. Damnit everyone who comes into contact with us is cursed. And the people we love? What's the average lifespan of a Winchester love interest, Sam? If he stays he's as good as dead. And I've got no faith left to assume he'll find his way back this time."

Sam smiled, soothed from his wrongful assumption. He tried not to dwell on all his brother had said--for Dean's sake--but he understood. He knew the worry, the pain, the regret.

"It's not the Winchester curse, Dean. It's a hunter's. Bobby, Garth, Martin, Rufus, mom. It's why none of us can get out. We've made enemies, we know too much. Family is--like you love reminding me--our weak point. Love is pretty much our Achilles' heel. If anything I think Castiel is safer here, with us, in the thick of it. Our lives are probably going to end bloody and violent and painful--again--but Cas knows that. He's seen that. Hell he's experienced that. If you're going to fall in love, as a hunter, might be best to just ... fall in with another hunter. Somebody who knows this life. Somebody who chooses this."

Dean met Sam's eyes. Sam offered a slight smile of encouragement.

"Sammy," Dean started, and Sam knew the tone. That was the you-just-stepped-too-far tone. "Cas is /not/ a hunter and for the love of anything you hold sacred, don't give him the idea that he is. I don't want him... smelling people again."


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A few choice quotes and I want to explore sexuality. It’s not gay or straight, it’s not even bi. It’s love and the details don’t matter.
> 
> Or
> 
> A look through Dean Winchester's defining moments, leading up to the dawning of a realization in a man who would have described himself as 'mainly heterosexual'.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This will be multi-chapter and there will be porn/smut/sex whatever you want to call it at the end. I just want to explore a few avenues I haven't seen anyone tackle yet. People are stuck on labeling Dean and I wanted to get rid of the labels.

Not only is masculinity a dilemma for gay men, it also seems to be completely antithetical to the homosexual’s existence, in that masculinity is seen as strictly heterosexual. In this sense, gay men are seen as failing in the attempt of embodying masculinity. Don Conway-Longway explores the results of this perception of failure:  
[I]f a man fails or a group of men fail to live up completely to the hegemonic rules of global and Western-defined masculinity, then and therefore he or they have no masculinity worth studying of his or their own, nor is it interesting even to wonder why or how he or they construct difference within the category male/masculine. The recognition of difference ‘within’ this gendered category called masculinity and an identification of the plurality of masculinities are the beginnings of the deconstruction of the dominant masculine [beliefs], because the struggle among men is equally important as the struggle for dominance over women and children.

\- Searching for a Gay Masculinity, Grimmel College

 

Dean frowned--eyes set on Cas and Charlie in front of him, playing cards while seated on the grass outside the bunker--but his attention was caught by the sound of wings behind him. He tilted his head just slightly to inform the arrival he'd heard the approach.

"Well you look just stunning. You slept at all in the past month?"

Dean sighed and ignored the drawl. Balthazar. He'd been hoping it was Gabriel because at least Gabriel seemed to understand humor on a grand scale. Balthazar had been mostly doom and gloom since the pair had shown up on the bunker doorstep with no explanation for anything. Seemed Dean's lot in life to see the dead return with no form of explanation given. He'd taken it better than Kevin, who Dean was sure would never fully integrate into the hunter's life style.

"What can I possibly do for you?" Dean grumbled, shifting on his patch of grass as Balthazar invited himself to sit. He eyed the angel--offended--but Balthazar didn't seem to care as was usual.

"Must I want something every time we chat now?"

"Yes."

"Well then surprise for you because I'm here on /your/ behalf you twat."

Dean mouthed the insult to himself, brows knitting together. He turned his head away from Balthazar and back towards the duo in the grass. They were out of earshot but Dean didn't really want to listen to their conversation. He just wanted to see Cas happy. Hearing Cas speak, hearing the nonsense words again, it hurt too much. It was the common consensus that everything was just too much for what was left of Jimmy Novak's mind in the vessel Dean had come to know as Castiel. Everything just piled on top of itself and now human Cas couldn't work through it. He'd relapsed. He had a few days of sanity in the beginning and then it was gone. It was so reminiscent of Cas' first trip down Crazy Lane that Dean kept expecting Meg's voice--her grating, irritating, /sorely missed/ voice--on his ears. What was worse was Balthazar and Gabriel's helplessness. Neither one of them could do anything, nor could they promise it would work out. It was a waiting game and Dean felt his own sanity was twined in somewhere along the line. He needed Cas to recover.

"You know, maybe if you tried talking to him instead of--"

"Shut it, Balthazar. Ok? I don't have time to listen to one of your Holier-Than-Thou lectures."

"Yes, because you've got /so much else/ on your plate at this very second."

Dean narrowed his eyes as he met the smug look next to him. Balthazar lifted his eyebrows and Dean dropped his retort.

"That's what I thought. Now, again, why aren't you over there with him?"

"Because he's playing cards with Charlie and he's enjoying himself."

"Really, are you sure?"

"Of course I'm not sure, damnit. I'm not a mind reader. He's smiling, isn't he? He's placated for the time being. He /looks/ happy." Dean shook his head. "Besides, what exactly would I talk to him about, hmm?"

"Whatever you wanted, I imagine. I can't honestly believe he'd be too picky."

"You're telling me he'd be content to just listen to me talk?" Dean felt the urge to punch Balthazar in the face--multiple times--at the look he received as an answer. "Look, I don't know what kind of summary of our lives these past few years you've gained from your angel mojo, but it hasn't exactly been a picnic. I don't know what the Hell Cas remembers--again--and I'll be damned before I'm gonna remind him of it all--again--so you can take your self righteous attitude and shove it."

"Woah now." Balthazar held up his hands. "Calm down there, boy. I'm not suggesting you go over there to try and jog his memory. I'm his brother, Dean Winchester. I'm trying to keep him happy and right now he doesn't want to be playing cards with your surrogate sister, right now he wants to be with you. He /always/ wants to be with you."

Dean snorted and moved to stand. Balthazar followed him.

"Not what you wanted to hear?"

"No, I'm sorry. It's not." Dean growled. "I've been nothing but trouble for him since day one, you said it yourself. He was happy when he thought he was a faith healer and I ruined that. He was happy to be a solider in heaven because he had a purpose and I ruined that. He wanted to make it up to me, somehow, and I ruined that too. I practically handed him over to Naomi on a gold platter."

"Oh would you stop wallowing in self pity for three fucking seconds you mud monkey!"

Dean jerked, taken aback by the outburst. Castiel and Charlie glanced over, hearing raised voices. Charlie frowned and moved her gaze to watch Castiel. For his part the angel looked concerned, blue eyes squinting under guilt-heavy eyebrows.

"Let me apologize for our brother /saving your soul/ ruining whatever life you thought you had before you. Need I remind you that you were /created/ by the angels, practically from day one, to serve as a vessel? As a skin. As a /suit/ for one of our best to parade around in? If it were not for /my brother/ you would be nothing but a simpering mess of a mortal, drooling and wetting yourself day-in-and-day out with no law to safely see you to the other side. Or, maybe by someone's good grace, you'd be ended. You'd be stuck in Heaven--you know--that place you visited once and claimed you never wanted to see again? An endless stretch of one long dream with no end in sight and too much good to soothe any real ache? Did I quote that right? Isn't that what you told your vampire friend? Well, suck it up, Freckles! I'm sorry seeing Castiel like this /wounds/ you. I'm sorry it's /just too much/. My brother has done nothing but love you, adore you, /worship/ you with every molecule of his essence since he first laid hand on you in Hell! In /Hell/! You used him up like a battery and never gave a second thought to him until you realized you needed the convenience of his 'angel mojo' at your fingertips. It's about time you started acting like the /man you think you are/ and hold his hand a little. He /needs/ you in ways you can't imagine because you've never reciprocated /real love/ for a second of your miserable, pathetic, wasted little life!"

Dean gaped, eyes wide as he latched onto the fire in Balthazar's gaze even as it continued to burn him. The angel loomed now taller than Dean somehow in spite of Dean's height advantage over Balthazar's vessel. It seemed Balthazar's anger was going to reduce him to ash, and just when he was ready to let it he felt a hand on his arm.

"Dean." Castiel said uncertainly, craning his neck to one side to break the contact between his brother and the hunter.

Dean slowly pulled his gaze away to look at Castiel. He seemed frightened to meet Castiel's eyes in the wake of Balthazar's outburst. For his part the blond-vesseled angel looked away.

"They were out of pie, Dean." Cas said with a sigh, scrunching up one corner of his mouth as if to say: isn't it just the damnedest thing? Figures, right?

"Who was out of pie, Cas?" Dean said breathlessly, scared to make a wrong move with Balthazar and his holy wrath so close.

"The convenience store. I was going to just make you one myself, don't know how to bake pie, but I wasn't thinking about that at the time." Castiel shrugged, lips pulled down sadly.

"What--what are you talking about?" Dean ventured, sounding a little more sure of himself.

"The pie he nearly killed a store clerk for." Balthazar interjected. He met Castiel's gaze and they smiled softly at one another. The smile was gone the second Balthazar looked back to Dean.

"Oh, I see you're confused. I'm shocked. You remember that day--during the trials, after you brought Castiel to the bunker--that you ignored him like a child? He tried to talk with you and offered to help you two wrangle up some demons, but you refused him? Shot him down? Well, my dear sweet brother went /shopping/ for you, Dean." Balthazar lifted his hands and with the same sound of flapping wings a large bag and a case of beer appeared. Balthazar extended the items to Castiel. Dean frowned, watching as Cas reverently took the offered items.

"You know why you didn't get these the first go 'round?" Balthazar growled, crossing his arms over his chest.

Dean blinked a few times, looking over as Castiel riffled through the bags, then nodded to himself. He offered the items to Dean, who took them cautiously.

"Why?" The hunter whispered.

"Because Metatron found him, that's why. He left to bring you these things, these material things because he thought it might help redeem himself in your eyes, and by doing so he walked right into Metatron's hands."

"Thanks Cas." Dean whispered. He glanced up from the copy of Busty Asian Beauties he could see leering at him from the bag and met Castiel's eyes. "I can teach you how to make pie."

 

#

Masculinity and femininity are relational constructs... Although ‘male’ and female’ may have some universal characteristics...one cannot understand the social construction of either masculinity and femininity without reference to the other. Masculinity only exists in contrast with that which is feminine. Not only is masculinity rooted in contrast to femininity, it is a complete renunciation of everything feminine. Masculine identity is born in the renunciation of the feminine, not in the direct affirmation of the masculine, which leaves masculine gender identity tenuous and fragile...This notion of anti-femininity lies at the heart of contemporary and historical conceptions of manhood, so that masculinity is defined more by what one is not rather than who one is. 

\- Michael Kimmel  


"Charlie?" Dean called curiously, poking his head around the door. He was rewarded with a glimpse of the red-head's back, leaning on her elbows on the railing of the roof. Dean cast a glance over his shoulder into the bunker stairwell before stepping into the cool October night air. He shifted the beers in his hand and tapped Charlie on the shoulder with one.

"Figured you might need one." Dean offered with a soft smile.

"Oh, yeah. Thanks." Charlie said quietly as she took the beer. She watched Dean lean his side into the railing. He was picking at the label on his beer--half empty and the bottle still looked chilled--mouth set in a frown. Charlie quickly chugged a good portion of the beer, making a face as she pulled the bottle free of her mouth. Dean whistled low from next to her.

"Should I go get you another one?"

"No. I don't... I'm not a big fan of drinking, honestly." Charlie gave a smirk, glancing at her drink. She sighed and returned to staring ahead blankly.

"You gonna be ok?"

"Oh yeah, sure." Charlie forced a smile to her face, but she couldn't fool Dean. Hell even Sam was on to her by now. She laughed hoarsely--reminding Dean a great deal of himself in the process--and shook her head.

"I just wasn't... as prepared as I thought I'd be. I guess that's stupid and niave, huh?"

"Not at all. They still get under my skin sometimes. That's what demons do, though. They know just what to say to really get in there deep." Dean tried to offer a comforting smile. "You just have to trust that you know the truth better than they do. I can't imagine a kid like you letting some bully get the last laugh. Your mom was a great woman, and I know because you're a great woman, Charlie. She'd be proud of you."

"Dude, please don't go all chick flick moment on me. I'm barely keeping it together as it is and crying would totally ruin my cred with the MOLs." Charlie shook her head.

"Moles?"

"Yeah... Men Of Letters?"

Dean tried the acronym on his tongue and lifted his eyebrows in approval. He turned and rested his back against the railing. Charlie followed suit soon after, moving to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with the older hunter. They both sighed, chuckling afterwards.

"Oh man, I never wanted a little sister--Sam was enough trouble--but damned if you aren't perfect."

"Aw shucks." Charlie laughed. "If that's the case then you've gotta take me out some time and show me these class a scoring moves you keep talking about. Sam's mentioned a couple of your one night stands." Charlie whistled. "I thought /I/ was good."

"Ah that's not what you want, one-night-stands. You want something that's gonna last. One nighters are over-rated."

"Says you!" Charlie shoved Dean lightly. "Plus I thought we were doing the Leia and Luke thing, don't go all Obi-Wan on me." Charlie grinned at the look of disbelief Dean tossed her way.

"Hey, Charlie?"

"Hmm?"

"When did you..." Dean sighed, he finished off his beer. "When did you know you were gay?"

"Oooh, there it is. Million dollar question. I was wondering when I'd break you down."

"Sorry. I didn't mean to--"

"Nah, you're fine. I'm kidding." Charlie glanced down at the drink her hands. The bottle was now a comfortable temperature, but the condensation had begun to peel at the corners of the label. She decided to help.

"I always knew, really." She said thoughtfully. "I didn't always know /what/ it was that I knew, but I knew. I dunno. I felt like an outcast, like all the other girls were seeing things I wasn't. It was like being a really, really, /really/ late bloomer. I kept thinking: ok, maybe next year will be the year when I start to see what they see in dudes. It was never the next year." She said, eyeing Dean as if it were some secret. "Eventually I brought it up to-to my mom. She was so supportive, even if she thought I was too young yet to know for sure." Dean frowned at the pain in Charlie's forced smile. "She told me it was ok, if I never liked boys. She said as long as I liked a person who would treat me nice, who would let me be /me/, that was all she wanted for me and that's all she said I needed. Love." Charlie turned to look at Dean.

Dean looked away. He brought his bottle to his lips before realizing it was empty and sighing longingly.

"Weren't you uh... Worried about how people would look at you? Worried about them not thinking you were feminine enough, or ... whatever?"

"Pssht. Nah. I was perfectly fine with being a social pariah. Dude! Of /course/ I was worried. I never /stopped/ being worried. Honestly for as hard as you guys try to save this planet, it's like you weren't even raised here some times. People are cruel, especially children and /especially/ towards things they don't understand. I did the really super girly thing for a while--you know what I mean--all pink and dresses. Blugh. I just couldn't do it. I couldn't fit into that ... mold people made for feminine. So I said screw it. I would be /my/ definition of feminine. So now I get to look good in a pair of slacks and a kick ass jacket /and/ a mini skirt, if I feel like it."

Dean had a small smirk on the corners of his mouth when Charlie finished. She studied him for a moment, a question of her own on her tongue. Dean took a breath to continue, however, so she kept her thoughts to herself.

"So if you're still worried about how people look at you, how do you own it? I saw the way you carried yourself during that LARP. You /ran/ that place. Girls, and guys, all over you. If deep down you're still thinking they're judging you, how come you don't show it?"

"Well, Dean, you see a big part of LARPing is the Role Play, you know... acting?" Charlie laughed. "But the truth? People who are in to that kind of thing are really open-minded. Honestly when they're in that setting, with other people like them, they're the happiest people I've ever met. Most of them have achieved this awesome kind of enlightenment that I've long thought the rest of humanity needs to catch up on."

"Oh? What's that? That love is love?"

"Essentially. Really, I think gay and straight--both pretty damned strange. You're like limiting yourself half the population of the planet but you're still searching for the other half of your soul. I think a lot of the sexuality stigma is why people are just so unhappy. People settle when they marry, which is why the divorce rate is so high. I betcha if we started believing, as a whole, that it was normal to be bisexual or pansexual or whatever you want to call it, we'd have a lot more happy people. I'm gonna go philosophical on you here but... Love shouldn't be about sex. Sex should be about sex. Love should be about connecting with a person on such an extreme level that you can relax with them the way you relax when you're completely alone. That old cliche, you know finding someone you can truly be yourself with, if you're gonna limit yourself to either a pair of tits or a dick, I think you've just sliced your chances of finding that."

Charlie glanced over at Dean and met his gaze. She smiled and watched as he really took in her words. As he nodded and looked up, she saw her chance. She took a breath.

"Sooo," she drawled lazily, "any particular reason why you're suddenly so interested?" When Dean glanced at her with his forced 'I-have-no-idea-what-you're-talking-about' look, she shook her head. "I won't take 'No'. Even if you just make up something to tell me, 'No' won't cut it."

"I don't have to explain myself to you." Dean said, though his tone was clearly soft. Charlie let out something like a squeal.

"Can I venture a guess?" When all she received was Dean shaking his head with a grin and looking away, Charlie took the signal as a green light. "Having some deeply intimate concerns, Dean? Maybe starting to realize a little sum'thin', sum'thin'."

"Sum'thin', sum'thin'?" Dean echoed, laughing at the wag in Charlie's eyebrows. "Nah. I--"

"Dean, come /on/!" Charlie whined in exasperation. She set her bottle down on the railing and moved in front of the hunter. "Look, dude, it's me, yoohoo! Charlie! The absolute /last/ person on the Earth who's gonna judge you about stray sexual thoughts. Man. I thought you just admitted you've fully adopted me into your family under the title Little Sis. Doesn't that mean I get some kind of truth out of you?"

"Truth, from me? You read Chuck's books."

"I did. I also got the rest of your sad story from Castiel." Charlie paused and then pointed at Dean's expression. "Ah ha! Look at that! Dude I'm gonna get you a mirror. Do you /see/ your face when somebody says Castiel? Do you know what bringing him up does to your face? Are you aware you get this little... cautious grin?"

"I don't--"

"Dean." Charlie lifted her eyebrows.

"It's complicated, Charlie."

"Uncomplicate it for me." Charlie crossed her arms over her chest. She kept her gaze on Dean even as he tried to look away. "You might find some answers if you can just admit it out lo~ud."

"Fine."

Charlie tried to hold in her squeal. She scanned Dean's face eagerly as he seemed to consider carefully his next words. She was a little worried when his expression turned sour and wondered if maybe she'd pushed too far. However Dean met her gaze and she could see that same cautious smile playing around the corners of his mouth, his eyes, even as he tried to hold it back.

"I may be... questioning my... taste in bed-mates."

"Oh my God you can't even say it!"

"Say what?" Dean said with a laugh.

"Charlie," Charlie said, lowering her voice and placing her hands on her hips. She tilted her head down and put on her best 'Serious-Dean' expression. "I'm in love with Castiel."

Charlie's smile faded quickly, her arms dropped to her sides and she stepped back at the look she saw cross Dean's face. She looked away and rubbed at her arms.

"I'm--I'm sorry. I didn't mean to overstep, make you uncomfortable."

"No. You didn't." Dean sighed. "You're... I mean you might be right. I don't know." The admission was quickly swallowed by uncertainty. Charlie smiled.

"What's not to know?"

"I'm not--I mean I don't feel..."

"Gay?" Charlie smiled as Dean looked over at her. "Didn't you listen to anything I just said? It doesn't have to be: Dean Winchester is gay. It's: Dean Winchester is in love. Big difference. And the folks that get hung up on how you're both hung, well, we'll just have a list of folks who might not be top priority when a poltergeist comes a'knockin'."

Dean shook his head with a slight smile.

"So, care to try that again?"

"Charlie,"

"Dean."

"I think I'm in love."


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A few choice quotes and I want to explore sexuality. It’s not gay or straight, it’s not even bi. It’s love and the details don’t matter.
> 
> Or
> 
> A look through Dean Winchester's defining moments, leading up to the dawning of a realization in a man who would have described himself as 'mainly heterosexual'.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This will be multi-chapter and there will be porn/smut/sex whatever you want to call it at the end. I just want to explore a few avenues I haven't seen anyone tackle yet. People are stuck on labeling Dean and I wanted to get rid of the labels.

When a person is assigned a specific biological sex at birth, they are not only given a certain gender role; they are also prescribed a particular sexual script. Not only does this gender script place restriction on the gender roles of heterosexuals; it also creates quite a paradox for homosexuals. This paradox is as follows; if masculinity is based on the act of penetration, then gay men (those who are perceived as penetratrated) are inherently not masculine.

\- Searching for a Gay Masculinity, Grimmel College

 

Dean let out a low, slow breath through pursed lips and clenched teeth as he pulled the key from the Impala. Beside him he felt Sam's eyes scanning his face, looking for a clue as to what was wrong. Charlie, Kevin and Castiel in the backseat fell awkwardly silent. Dean chanced a quick glance into the mirror to lay his eyes on the three stooges. They all looked properly ashamed. Cas did not seem to be at all comfortable smooshed between Charlie and Kevin. Dean decided he had never seen a more crestfallen group of individuals and this time--he realized with a tense set in his jaw--he wanted the moment to last forever.

"Son of a bitch." Dean hissed, opening the door and stepping out, shoving the keys roughly into his pocket. He heard Sam's door open soon after. Kevin--seated behind Sam--was the only one in the back who made a move. He opened his door and through his peripheral vision Dean could see both Cas and Charlie slide awkwardly across the back seat so that none of them would chance a close encounter with very-angry-disappointed-father-figure-Dean.

Sam watched the trio for a moment, shaking his head. He opened his mouth to speak but Dean cut him off, turning to sneer over his shoulder.

"Cas, you stay here. I need to talk to you."

Sam's eyes widened for a moment as he glanced to the trio. He felt like he was watching The Lion King. Mufasa had just told Zazu to take Nala home while Simba was to remain behind. Sam chuckled a little, knowing it was just Dean's way of caring about someone, to rip them apart when they made a mistake. He nodded towards the bunker and Kevin fell into step behind him.

Charlie paused. She looked after the retreating MOLs, then turned to Cas. She frowned, offered a smile and hugged him.

"Don't let him get to you. He's just worried." She whispered, patting Castiel's arm as she pulled away. She frowned at the look in blue eyes as she left Castiel to his fate.

Castiel dropped his eyes to the ground for a moment. He lifted his head and glanced over his shoulder. He was rewarded with the dip of Dean's head while the hunter leaned into the Impala, silent and brooding. The ex-angel frowned hard, lines creasing over his face. This whole mishap had been his fault, hadn't it? He'd endangered everyone. He'd only been trying to help--but then that's all he ever tried to do and it always landed him in the same position. Would he ever learn?

Dean's eyes stole a glance towards the back of the car as Cas rounded the bumper. He remained silent and still until Castiel stopped by the back wheel. He shifted, scuffing his feet on the ground, clearly uncomfortable with the tongue lashing he was about to get. Dean's eyes narrowed.

\--

"Woah, Charlie, calm down. Where's the fire?" Sam asked with a soft laugh in his voice. Charlie only offered a rushed apology as she shoved past both Sam and Kevin, darting into the library and skidding into a chair. She launched forward, grabbed her laptop and pulled it towards her as if she knew the code to end the detonation sequence of a bomb. Kevin and Sam exchanged looks.

"Charlie, what's the rush?" Sam pressed, knitting his eyebrows together in slight concern. Kevin walked around to stand on Charlie's other side.

"Uh, no rush, really. Just uh... wanna pull this up and uh..."

"...Dean--"

"No way, Cas. Shut it. I'm doing the talking."

"/Charlie/." Sam hissed through his teeth. He looked to the computer incredulously as Charlie looked up at him. From beside her Kevin closed the laptop.

"Oh come on! Really?" Charlie huffed.

"That's a private conversation." Kevin said, tapping the laptop. "Dean told Cas to stay and the rest of us to go. Obviously he doesn't want anybody but Cas to hear what he's got to say."

"/Exactly!/" Charlie pressed. She looked desperately from Sam to Kevin. "I slipped my phone into Cas's jacket pocket. Look--I /need/ to hear this conversation, ok?" Receving nothing but looks of betrayed trust and disbelief, she sighed and looked up, asking silently for help.

"Ok, hear me out. I know you both are just dying for this thing between them to wrap up. I know 'cause I'm in the same boat and I've been gossiping to both you dorks about it for weeks now." Charlie looked pointedly from one man to the other. Kevin and Sam glanced hurriedly to one another, then awkwardly away. "Uh huh. That's what I thought. Dean's little heart-to-heart with me a few weeks back? That's a doorway opened, boys! This could be it! This could be the /moment/! You cannot tell me, you cannot look me in the eye and tell me honestly that you aren't just /dying/ to hear this!?"

Charlie's gaze moved quickly from Kevin to Sam and back. She looked more and more desperate as the silence drew on. She looked finally to Sam, pleading with her eyes. She was about to beg when she felt Kevin lean over. She turned to look and watched as he slowly opened her computer, glancing at Sam. Charlie looked hopefully to Sam, who sighed, rolled his eyes and nodded. He feigned for a moment dis-interest but then gave up, pulled up a chair and leaned forward.

\--

"...Dean--" Cas started, voice level.

"No way, Cas. Shut it. I'm doing the talking." Dean turned, rounding on Castiel with eyes ablaze. "What the Hell, man, really? Do you have any idea how stupid this was?"

Cas tried to hold Dean's gaze but it was impossible. He hated the crinkle of Dean's lips, the set of his jaw when he was upset. He dropped his gaze to the ground, tilting his head away.

"You know better than this, Cas. You lead Charlie and Kevin into this with no plan, no back-up, no nothing. Do you have any idea how lucky you are that Sam and I spotted Charlie's obnoxious car out there?"

"Yes." Cas answered sharply. He looked up. "I am aware we all could have been killed."

"Oh, well, you must have a good excuse then, right? Let's hear it."

"Dean..."

"C'mon man. This might be as giving as I'll be tonight. You got five seconds to tell me why this wasn't the dumbest thing you've ever done."

"Dean..."

"Five."

"I just--"

"Four."

"You don't--"

"Three."

"It was a mistake, Dean. I'm sorry." Cas blurted quickly, stepping forward and lifting his hands. "I feel so-so weak and helpless. I'm just burden to you and Sam. I can't even help research I get so distracted. I thought--I thought this would be easy. It was supposed to be a quick in and out. I've been following you and Sam for years, I've been in the thick of these fights. I thought--I thought I could handle it."

"And Kevin? Charlie?"

"I should never have told them my plans, Dean. I should not have agreed to let them accompany me. I put their lives in danger."

"And?" Dean crossed his arms over his chest.

"And? And what? I'm sorry, Dean. That's all I can be. I keep trying to do the right thing but... I can't."

"Cas, you don't have to prove yourself to us. To me." Dean sighed. "Not only did you risk Kevin and Charlie, you risked yourself too man. I thought we all agreed no more suicide missions, no more heroics."

"We did." Cas said softly. He looked up and met Dean's gaze. His eyebrows twitched inward and he tilted his head to the left. He did not see anger on Dean's face, not any more, now Dean looked concerned, worried... scared.

"You know why I don't like hunting with anyone but Sam?"

"Because he is your brother?"

"Because I know he can handle it. I worry when we're separated but deep down I know there's just about nothing he can't handle. I've seen him over-power Satan, for fuck's sake. You? Charlie? Kevin? Well, you /now/. You said it yourself it's different, everything's different. You guys aren't ready to do this alone. You're still making stupid mistakes and that's no way to go out. I'm supposed to /protect/ you, all of you. How the Hell am I supposed to do that if you run off without telling me?"

"You're not..." Cas started, slightly taken aback. "/I/ am /your/ guardian, Dean."

"You /were/ my guardian, Cas." Dean watched pain and fear settle into Castiel's features. He shook his head. "Let me return the favor, all right? It's the least I can do for you after all you've done for Sam and I."

"After... all I've /done for you/?" Cas said quietly. He shook his head. "Are you referring to nearly selling you out to Zachariah? Or perhaps making deals with Crowley behind your back? Opening up Purgatory?"

"I'm /referring to/ saving our asses. I'm referring to going against everything you were taught to help us. To putting us before yourself. To taking Sam's madness without ever stopping to think about what it would do to you. To always answering my calls. To beating sense into me when I needed it. To watching over Sam when I asked you to. To running yourself ragged in Purgatory to keep the Leviathans off me. To--to going with me to a brothel even though you were scared out of your mind." Dean smiled slowly. "To letting me laugh for the first time in years. To pulling us up even if it meant dragging yourself down."

"Dean," Cas offered, then realized he had nothing else to say.

"I can't lose any more family, Cas. I can't." Dean said quietly. "Family or-or people I care about."

"Friends?" Cas supplied, mistaking Dean's hesitation for the inability to find the right word.

"More than friends." Dean sighed. He rubbed at the back of his neck. He glanced up at the sky and then back down to the confused expression he knew was waiting for him. His eyes drifted down to settle on Cas' uneven, pursed lips. They slid lower to rest on his forever un-straightened tie. Dean could not help himself, he reached out to fix it.

"Cas, I'm gonna tell you something I've only ever told one other soul, you understand?"

"You're going to tell me a secret."

"Yeah."

"I can keep a secret." Cas said quietly, unsure where this conversation was headed. He tilted his head back slightly as Dean's forearm grazed his chin. "You've told this to Sam, I imagine?"

"No, uh. No." Dean stuttered as he pulled his hands away. "Benny."

"Benny? The vampire from Purgatory?" Castiel narrowed his eyes curiously. Dean nodded.

"Look when you--when I came back from Hell, Cas, I felt empty. It was a horrible, sucking emptiness that threatened to swallow everything I had left save my guilt. Guilt over... what I did down there. Famine saw it. You and Sam, I think, caught on before Famine took hold of you. He called me 'dead inside'. It uh--it really hit the mark. I was just going through the motions at that point, I have been for a while. I can dredge up this... energy that almost looks like passion and life and like I give a damned but it's been tough. In Purgatory--running around chopping heads with Benny--I almost lost it. I started to-to feel that same thrill I had felt in Hell. That wretching perverse thrill at being in total control of someone else's fate. I was causing pain to other people again, and I wasn't the one being targeted anymore. Seeing pain on other people's faces--even at my own hands--I could forget about everything for a while. Benny snapped me out of it, kind of literally. Beat the shit outta me like you did that one time in the alley. Point is, he made me realize that emptiness wasn't because I was longing to go back to that. He said because I could feel the guilt, I wasn't a monster. Sounds stupid, bare with me. So I did some soul searching, pardon the term. It turned out, Cas, and I've accepted completely that this is the truth--that hole? That's you, buddy. You pieced me back together, said so yourself, like a puzzle. But I don't think you realized what that did to me in the long run."

"Dean I'm... I'm sorry." Castiel said quietly, just above a whisper. "I had no idea. I--"

"Cas, let me finish." Dean sighed, rubbing at his shoulder, /the/ shoulder, the marked shoulder. "This hole I have, this emptiness, this craving for something--it all comes back to you. You're the--son of a bitch, can't believe I'm saying this--you're the piece of my soul I lost in the Pit." Dean hesitated before glancing over to find Castiel's eyes.

For a moment they just looked at one another. Dean could feel Cas reading him--like he always did--watching minute changes in Dean's expression that the hunter wasn't even aware he was making. Usually it ended with Cas nodding, looking away and confirming what Dean had tried to tell him in his own words. This time, however, Dean found Castiel remained confused.

"I'm not sure what you're trying to say, Dean." Cas admitted with a frown.

"Cas, damnit. I'm trying to tell you I l-...I love you." Dean looked away, shoving his hands into his pockets. "And not like--family, Cas. Like the kind of love Cupids are responsible for."

"Romantic love." Cas supplied. Dean glanced over at him, incredulous.

"Y-yeah." Dean watched Cas's face carefully. He watched his words register in Castiel's mind. He watched as a smile slowly settled over Cas's lips, his eyes stopped squinting and the smile spread upwards. Dean grinned crookedly.

"I reciprocate your feelings, Dean." Cas offered. He waited until Dean rolled his eyes, which the ex-angel knew was coming. He took a step forward.

"That is, Dean Winchester, I love you. I believe I have since the moment I patched your tattered soul together in the sulfur stained Pit."

"That's... romantic, Cas." Dean said quietly, closer to Cas than he'd been in a while. He reached up slowly--unsure--and cupped Cas's chin in his hand. He made a softly quirked expression at the feeling of stubble under his thumb. He tested the new sensation and rubbed his thumb along Cas's jawline. He felt his eyelids close slowly as Cas leaned in.

"Please, don't kiss me like the pizza man." He whispered, earning a soft snort from Castiel before they met in the middle, touching lips softly, uncertainly, comfortably.

#

Following the Stonewall riots of 1969, in which gay men fought back against a police raid on a Greenwich Village bar, and the subsequent birth of the Gay Liberation Movement, a new gay masculinity emerged in gay enclaves of America’s major cities. In these ‘gay ghettos,’ the ‘clone,’ as he was called, dressed in  
hypermasculine garb (flannel shirts, blue jeans, leather) and had short hair (not at all androngynous) and a mustache; he was athletic, highly muscular. In short the clone looked more like a ‘real man’ than most straight men. And the clones...enacted a hypermasculine sexuality in steamy backrooms, bars, and bathhouses where sex was plentiful, anonymous, and very hot. No unnecessary foreplay, romance, or postcoital awkwardness. Sex without attachment. One might even say that given the norms of masculinity (that  
men are always seeking sex, ready for sex, wanting sex), gay men were just about the only men in America who were getting as much sex as they wanted. 

\- Michael Kimmel

 

"Ow. Dean, ow. That hurts."

"Would you shut up for three seconds, Cas? I know it hurts. I'm working on it."

Dean hissed up at Cas, trying to ignore the pained expression looming just above him. He pressed his thumb to Castiel's right wrist as he continued to push the sleeve of the coat up. The trail of blood kept going and going but Dean had yet to find the injury. He grumbled and released Castiel's arm carefully.

"Take off the jacket, I can't see anything." Dean stepped back and rubbed at his jaw, knowing he'd be sporting a nasty bruise come morning. The sun was just setting behind the line of trees which hid the Impala from the highway. The hunt had been mostly a sucess, in that the demon had been killed. No one had gotten out unscathed however. Dean had ignored the slice across his forehead and through his left eyebrow long enough that the streak of blood had dried smeared from his hand like a birthmark. He had intended to drive all the way back to the bunker but catching a glimpse of Castiel's blood stained sleeve changed his mind. There was a nasty gash there and it wasn't healing. Dean had swerved off the highway, tucked the Impala away, pulled over and practically shoved Castiel into the back seat to play doctor. Bunker could wait and Dean promised himself he'd call Sam to update him once he'd tended to Cas's arm.

Castiel chewed his bottom lip as he shrugged out of his trench coat. He took note of the large red stain adorning his shirt and glanced up at Dean.

"Should I remove my shirt?" He supplied, frowning as moving the arm even just a little was unpleasant. 

Dean glanced over and frowned. Sometimes he found it hard--nearly impossible--to remember that Castiel had been a warrior, lead a garrison, that he'd actually seen war. He looked positively innocent sitting in the back of the Impala, head tilted just slightly, hair a mess, filthy and bleeding. 

"Yeah. You might as well." Dean reached forward and grabbed the trench coat--the black suit jacket crumpled to the floor--as Cas began unbuttoning his shirt. Dean shook the coat out once or twice before turning it around in his hands, trying to find the right arm. He frowned hard feeling the crinkle of dried blood between his fingers. His jaw set stiffer and his teeth ground together as the dried blood gave way to fresh blood, staining Dean's fingertips. Eventually his finger slipped into a hole and he held the sleeve up to the light. It was a large gash on the inside of the upper arm, right behind the bicep. Dean cursed.

Cas looked up as Dean balled the trench coat into an angry mess and tossed it into the car. He narrowed his eyes, shirt unbuttoned but still over his shoulders. He opened his mouth to speak but sighed and swallowed his words as Dean took over.

"Dean, I am capable of undressing myself." Cas muttered, leaning away from the seat of the car in order to let Dean pull the shirt carefully over one shoulder. 

"Not fast enough, look--damnit. You're bleeding everywhere." Dean sneered. He reached out and pressed a hand to Castiel's side, smearing the blood slightly to make sure it was all from one injury.

"I'll pay for any damage I cause the upholstery." Cas said flatly. He received a stony look from Dean as the hunter leaned in.

Dean lifted Cas's arm, eyes narrowed and searching. He slid his fingers carefully around Castiel's bicep, recalling in his mind the placement of the gash in the trench coat sleeve. He felt Cas stiffen, heard the ex-angel hiss through his teeth and jerk his head towards Dean as a fingertip breached the injury. Dean winced; it was easily large enough for his finger. He moved his hand to Cas's elbow and pushed up a little.

"Hold your arm here for a second, let me get the first aid kit outta the trunk." Dean slowly moved his hand, waiting until he was sure Castiel would comply. Cas watched as Dean moved towards the Impala's trunk. He tilted his head down, trying to touch his chin to his chest to see the injury with his own eyes. All he could see was the jello-like substance he'd grown to recognize as clotted blood. It trickled down into his armpit and down the side of his torso under his watchful eyes. 

"Stop that." Dean admonished as he returned. He dropped the first aid kit into the only available and accessible space--Castiel's lap. He crouched down, braced his knees against the Impala, and flipped open the kit.

Castiel dipped his head to watch Dean rifle through the box. His hands were steady and he seemed to know exactly what he needed. Cas glanced up as Dean looked to meet his eyes.

"This is gonna sting like a bitch."

"I've had injuries mended before, Dean." He paused. "But thank you for the warning. It was... thoughtful of you."

Dean ignored Cas and the smirk he knew would be waiting for him should he chance a look. Instead he reached back up for Castiel's arm. He braced one hand just behind Cas's elbow and lifted the sterile pad in the other. He rolled his shoulder and quickly pressed the pad to the wound. He felt Cas tense, muscles under his fingers spasming, and he heard the man try and bite back a groan. 

"Hang in there, man. Helluva lot better than risking infection. Ask Sam." Dean said quietly, using two fingers to press the pad further against the wound. He slowly pulled it away and tilted his head far to one side to try and see the full extent of the gash. He clicked his tongue against the back of his teeth. 

"Damnit, Cas."

"Could you refrain from cursing me while tending to my injury, Dean? It's unsettling."

"Unsettling? Really? What's unsettling is that you've been human for months now and you're still making careless mistakes. I saw this hit land. You didn't even try to stop it."

"I raised my arm to block the blow from my face." Cas supplied, knitting his brows in confusion. 

"Yeah but you didn't move out of the way. You didn't flinch, you didn't duck, nothing." Dean shook his head as he drew the used pad through the blood around the wound. The skin already looked red and angry. Dean pursed his lips, hoping for the best. "I've got to put a few stitches in this."

"I assumed as much."

"No you didn't." Dean wrinkled his nose. He discarded the sterile pad and began shifting through the contents of the first aid kit once more.

"I had a /feeling/. You studied this injury far too closely. I have watched you study injuries before. I know the look on your face when you realize a wound is more serious than you previously assumed or hoped."

"You watch me when I'm looking at... I'm not surprised. That's creepy, Cas. Never not gonna be creepy." Dean quickly prepared a small needle and thread. "Turn around, face the front."

Cas did as was instructed. His white shirt slowly slid off his left shoulder to crumple around his hand. He pinched the fabric between his thumb and forefinger, rubbing it to calm himself. He tried to focus in on the head-rest of the seat in front of him, but turned his head once he realized Dean had not made a move. He found green eyes--concerned eyes--scanning his face.

"You ready?"

"Yes."

Dean quickly set to work. He tried to concentrate on the necessity of what he was doing instead of focusing on exactly what it was he was doing. He had never been good at stitching up other people. Himself? Ha. Piece of cake. But someone else? It made him jittery, sick, light-headed and left him feeling unbalanced and unsettled. Especially since... He shook his head, pulling the thread through it's third loop. He made one more in and out and quickly tied it off. He leaned in and snapped the thread with his teeth. Pulling back he frowned hard at Castiel. The ex-angel had leaned forward and braced himself on the headrest of the passenger's side chair. His forehead was pressed to his forearm and his teeth were bared in a grimace of pain.

"You gonna make it?" Dean said with a half smile, attempting to lighten the mood.

"I was not aware my life was in danger." Castiel responded in kind, turning to look at Dean with the same small smile on his lips. It was a smile of understanding. A smile of we-really-could-have-died-back-there.

Dean's eyes wandered over Cas' lips and he swallowed. He slid his eyes upwards to meet Cas' and flicked his tongue out across his bottom lip. He found Castiel's eyes hauntingly centered on his own. He felt that familiar twist in his gut--the one that wasn't quite pain but wasn't quite pleasure--that told him he should be doing something even if he didn't know what that something was. He never knew what that something was.

Before he knew what he was doing, Dean was moving in. He was already kneeling so he didn't have much further to go to reach Cas' face. He cupped a bloody hand--in hindsight probably not the most romantic move--against Castiel's cheek. He felt the ex-angel's head tilt gently into the touch. He pushed himself up and pressed his lips to Cas'. They had kissed a number of times in the weeks since their rather open confessions and each time Dean wasn't sure how to follow up from the last. He worried his lips into Cas' mouth, unable to help tensing his shoulders upwards into the cautious hands that found his joints.

Dean felt a sudden surge of heat run through his body like the first gulp of hot chocolate in winter. He gasped against Castiel's lips and pulled back just slightly. Cas tilted his head to one side as Dean realized what had happened. The angel's hand had slid to rest atop the mark that would forever adorn Dean's left arm. Cas had barely touched it through the fabric of Dean's shirt and the reaction was instantaneous.

"You did that on purpose." Dean whispered, tilting his chin so that his forehead pressed into Castiel's.

"Perhaps." The ex-angel said coyly, mischievously.

Dean narrowed his eyes and smirked. He forcibly tilted Cas' head up with the hand on his cheek. He captured the other's lips again, this time moving forward. Dean brought up his left hand and cautiously splayed it against Castiel's chest. He felt his heart clench as he suddenly remembered that Cas was not wearing a shirt. Dean's palm met with cool flesh, trembling flesh, and the surprise of well-toned muscle beneath. He felt a wave of fear he hadn't known was coming ebb as the sensation of coiled muscle under his hand did not turn him away or make him recoil. In fact it spurned him forward.

Castiel flared his nostrils, attempting to breathe deeper while continuing the kiss. He was only marginally successful. The seal of their lips broke with a slight gasp as Castiel found himself being forcibly shoved, a strong hand urging him downwards. He did not resist Dean's will--he had never been good at doing such--and laid himself back into the Impala's giving backseat. He frowned slightly as he found himself looking up at Dean, body cold from the hunter's notable absence. Dean had pushed at Cas to lie back but had not followed him, not even to maintain contact.

Dean let his eyes travel slowly down from Castiel's lips to the point of his chin. He was kneeling still as a statue on the very edge of the seat, arms now at his sides lamely. His eyes followed the dip of Cas' throat to the rise of his collar bone and continued down. Watching Castiel take a breath reminded Dean that breathing was a necessity and he took in a breath--a loud breath, a breath that shook slightly--and pulled his eyes away. His gaze fell to the pile of bloodied clothes on the floor. He narrowed his eyes slightly and looked back to Castiel.

Cas slowly pushed himself up onto his elbows--wincing in the process as it put strain on his injury--and opened his mouth to speak. He knew--perhaps better than Dean--the struggle the hunter was going through in regard to his feelings for Castiel, and the ex-angel wanted no strain on their relationship. His words died before they left his mouth as Dean began shrugging out of his ever-present over-shirt. Cas watched transfixed, mouth slightly parted and eyes wide as Dean dropped the shirt behind him and immediately pulled off his two remaining shirts. They soon joined the crumple of clothes on the Impala's floor.

Free from his shirts, Dean launched forward with a strange, welcome and renewed passion. The blood on Castiel's clothing reminded Dean yet again that his angel was now human: mortal, fragile, wounded. He'd wasted too much time already when time hadn't mattered, he'd be damned if he was going to waste any more now that it did. He slid completely into the Impala and reached down to hook his hands under Castiel's knees. He pulled forward, sliding Castiel towards him and leaning down. He hovered a moment, staring down at wide eyes before claiming imperfect lips once more.

Castiel wasn't expecting to feel so vulnerable and downright /needy/, but that's just what he felt. Desperate, needy, like he was clinging to life with his last threads of hope... and they hadn't done more than kiss. He suddenly wasn't sure how humans managed to keep themselves composed. Body heat that he had been ignorant and indifferent to before now pooled and swirled between his chest and Dean's, inches apart. Cas took in a deep breath, purposefully clashing his body into Dean's. The backs of his thighs found themselves pressed flush to the front of Dean's and Cas could not recall having felt so secure before.

Dean began to slowly move his hands from their clasp against Castiel's knees. His palms ran the length of the other man's thighs, thumbs pressing a streak along the top until they dipped into the curves of hollow hipbones. Cas' mouth opened wide in the midst of their kiss and Dean took the opportunity to run his tongue along the ex-angel's lips. Dean careened forward and glided his hands over a shuddering bare torso with the ghost of a touch until he reached Castiel's chest. He pressed his hands against yielding muscle and then drove them down with a needy contact in contrast.

Castiel found his back arching up without conscious effort, completely natural in response to Dean's stroking. He slid his own hands up Dean's arm--hearing a soft groan from the hunter as the mark was breached--and continued upwards until his fingers ran the back of Dean's neck. He carefully wove his fingers into Dean's short hair, short nails scraping against the scalp. Dean's hands found purchase on Castiel's right hip and the crook of his neck on the left and they felt perfect. Cas pulled his right hand free of Dean's hair and covered the large anti-possession tattoo with his palm.

Dean felt a noise bubble up into his throat and he was fairly certain he would have purred had he the ability. Castiel's hand over his tattoo was such a strangely symbolic gesture and Dean knew Cas had done it for just that reason. De an /belonged/ to Cas--he had even before he'd pulled his head out of his ass long enough to admit it--and the idea didn't frighten Dean. He slowly stretched his legs out behind him, resting his lower body to rest against Castiel's hips. He turned his head and began brushing his lips against the side of Castiel's face, murmuring nothing against soft stubble.

Cas groaned at the sudden pressure placed on him, it was welcome but prisoning. He was pinned to the back seat with little room for maneuvering. He shifted against Dean momentarily and sucked in a quick gasp. His body was well out of control, responding to Dean's stimuli with very little warning to Castiel. He found himself suddenly erect--or at least suddenly aware that he was erect--and his thin suit pants did nothing to dull the sensation of Dean's weight rubbed against him. His legs on either side of Dean's hips, Cas bent his right knee up and bucked gently, testingly into the man above him.

Dean buried his face against Castiel's neck as the ex-angel rubbed into him. His pants were not nearly as giving or kind when it came to this sort of thing. While Castiel's erection had room to move, Dean found his own hardness trapped to his right thigh. Damnt his favor for tight, straight-leg jeans. He shifted against himself, pressing his hips down against Castiel just to hear the other man moan. He knew he wasn't going to get anywhere--not like this--and he hesitated for only a second. They had come this far, why not take it a step further? Baby wasn't going to judge.

Castiel's eyes rolled back into his head as Dean pressed against him again. He was at a loss as to how such little contact could drive him so mad. His lips parted and he found a plea on his lips as Dean shifted and moved away--up and off--slightly. Cas forced his eyes open and was rewarded with a look of intense concentration on Dean's angular features. The ex-angel felt the hand on his hip slide inward, backs of Dean's knuckles brushing against the hem of his pants; agonizingly close but not close enough. Cas caught his breath, tilting his head to try and watch Dean move between them.

Dean made quick work of his button and zipper, smirking proudly at his dexterity. He pulled his fly open and hesitated, tilting his head to meet Castiel's eyes. He felt immediately sucked into pools of blue, watching as Cas' pupils expanded until the black threatened to swallow everything else. Cas looked needy and Dean imagined he was close to the same. There was no reason to hold back anymore, he told himself, this was Cas. This was right. This had been a long time coming. Dean quickly pressed his lips against Castiel's pouring resolve into the action as he shimmied his pants down just enough to free himself from his briefs.

Cas wasn't sure how to forge the same passionate kisses he was receiving from Dean. He hoped that his awkward attempts were enough to convey his want for more, his desire for the hunter. Considering Dean had not stopped to instruct or laugh, Castiel assumed he was acting passably. Giving up on attempting to watch Dean's hand between them, Cas had again closed his eyes against the torrent of physical emotion he found himself a slave to. His hands had taken to roaming the vast expanse of Dean's back, enjoying the ripple and tense of muscles as his hunter rolled and shifted.

Dean took a moment to wrap his hand around his own length, pumping himself once and grinding his lips into Castiel's as a result. He released himself and slowly turned his hand over, his palm instantly rested along the super-heated shaft pressed against him. He shifted suddenly, dropping his right hand to grip the backseat for leverage as Castiel bucked suddenly into the touch. Dean smiled into the short, desperate kisses his angel melted into, unable to hold on for long with only the softest of touches. Dean wanted to see--and hear--more of /that/. His thumb searched and hooked onto the latch of Castiel's pants.

Castiel suddenly gripped at Dean's shoulders, body locking up as a hand slipped into his pants and tentatively stroked down his erection. He heard a soft chuckle from Dean above him and knew his hunter was nervous. He could almost hear a failed joke crackle on Dean's lips and die off when Dean thought better of it. Castiel would not have minded hearing Dean's voice, no matter what sorry joke he would have told. He tilted his head up, straining a voice through his lips and throat while Dean gently pulled and maneuvered until Cas felt cool air against the heat of his passion.

Dean found himself relying solely on instinct and that worried him. Sex with a woman had essentially come naturally--he'd been exposed to it on television, through talks with other men, etc--but sex with another man was touch and go. Of course Dean knew what sex with another man entailed he had simply not done the full amount of research he now realized he probably should have. He decided to fall to what he knew felt good and go from there. He cautiously adjusted himself once more until he felt his erection brush along Castiel's. Biting his lip against the poetic mewl it elicited from his angel, Dean wrapped a firm hand around both members.

Cas sucked in a breath through clenched teeth. He tightened his grip on Dean's shoulders and tried to keep his composure. The hand around his erection moved gently but with confidence. Each stroke pressed Castiel intimately close to Dean causing the ex-angel's heart to feel as if it were about to burst through his chest. He could not hold still and his body wanted to writhe and rut like a wild animal. He settled for bucking his hips in stutters against the stroking of Dean's calloused hands. Castiel felt Dean's thumb swipe over the heads of both erections, smearing precum together, and the darker haired man could not hold his noises in.

Dean swooned into Castiel's neck, grinning like a kid at Christmas, as Castiel came undone beneath him. He shifted to rise onto his knees in order to gain more space to work. The odd angle and the lay of his body atop Cas put strain on his arms to help keep him in place but he wasn't complaining. His eyelids fluttered closed against the dark shadow on Castiel's jawline as tense hands slowly made their way down Dean's torso. Vice-like grip on Dean's shoulders loosened, Castiel was now seeming to explore Dean's body and the hunter could not help but flex into the pressing fingertips.

Castiel took a second to form his lips into a smile and let his next moan trickle out as a chuckle. He turned his head and nudged playfully at the side of Dean's face with his chin. His fingers bounced off well-defined lines and sculpted muscle. His body burned with the sensation between his legs, a heat he was altogether willing to let overpower him. His hips continued to buck and rut into Dean's hand, the fingers along his erection stroked and pet and squeezed at just the right angles. It was beautiful but Castiel wanted more: more contact, more intimacy. He wanted the full spectrum of human coitus.

"Dean," Castiel whispered, throat parched. He waited for a response but all his hunter seemed able to manage at the moment was a moan which seemed directed at Cas' call. The ex-angel continued on, footing unsure.

"More." Castiel hiccuped, voice unsteady as Dean's hand faltered along his member. "More please. I-I need... want..."

"I-I know." Dean answered, voice as lost as Castiel's. The hunter pressed a few worried kisses against Castiel's chin. "More isn't... this isn't as easy as... a guy and a girl, Cas." Dean slowed his hand, gripping the base of both members gently as he pushed himself up. He scanned the debauched and faded look in Castiel's face until he knew he had the ex-angel's full attention.

"Dean," Castiel offered, "the pizza man visits many houses."

Dean stared in disbelief for a moment, letting the words settle into the back of his mind and take hold. His look melted into a smug grin and a knowing quirk of his eyebrows.

"Touche." He offered, adding a long, slow pump of the entwined erections for effect. He was rewarded with a slight growl and a hand square on the center of his chest. He caved in and sat back on his haunches, freeing his hands, as Castiel pushed him off.

It was a mad dash to see who could disrobe first. The pair were both starting to feel nerves tense, hesitation set in and anxiety grip at their stomachs, but neither wanted to acknowledge it. The sooner they could return to knowing one another, the sooner they could finally feel the fruition of their union. Dean grinned at the sound of Baby rocking on her heels to accomdate two flash-stripping men in her backseat. It was a scene he had never imagined.

Once fully disrobed, Dean leaned in to cover Castiel again but his ex-angel had other plans. Castiel spread his palm over Dean's chest and pushed backwards. The hunter hesitated--unsure and nervous--but eventually caved in to the suggestion in hand and gaze and laid himself back. He slid for a moment around on the seat, awkward and hardly sexy, to grab the still open door and pull it closed, encasing the pair inside the Impala. He pushed himself up onto his elbows to watch as Castiel moved to straddle him. He reached up and instantly took hold of Castiel's hips, rubbing his thumb in circles along the inner curve. 

"Cas," Dean warned as the other man moved to settle down over dean, "you shouldn't just... I mean you need to--"

"Dean," Castiel said flatly, "I am not as inept as I may sometimes appear. I know full well what I am doing."

Dean pulled his bottom lip temporarily into his mouth at Castiel's tone. He nodded and let his hands ride along instead of trying to guide Cas' hips. He bent his knees as Castiel positioned himself to sit just above Dean's erection. Dean knitted his eyebrows in confusion until he watched Castiel slide two fingers into his mouth. Dean's eyes glazed over, a moan curled up from his chest and he clutched at Cas' skin as his groin twitched, registering that he was about to get a show. He moved his hands to let Castiel bend over, pressing their chests almost flush.

Castiel pressed his forehead to Dean's chin. He removed his fingers from his mouth and gingerly reached behind him. He had--once or twice--explored his vessel since coming to terms with his deep, intimate and wishfully physical reaction to Dean but it was still unfamiliar territory to say the least. He was impatient tonight unfortunately and had no time to tred as he usually did. He wanted Dean badly enough to forgo preparation all together--though he'd learned through various means that was never, ever advisable--and so biting his lip he twirled his fingers around his entrance once, then pressed them both in.

Dean cursed silently and balled a hand into a fist to keep himself from losing it the second Castiel gasped. He felt the body atop him shudder, tense and then relax and his mind went wild with imagination. He ran his hands along the smooth ridges of Castiel's back, cupping shoulder blades that bobbed in time with scissoring fingers. Dean squeezed his eyes shut and licked his lips, hips bucking before he could stop himself. Castiel was practically singing in soft whimpers and whines, curved in on himself, working himself open in a frenzy in order to be as close to Dean as was physically possible at the moment.

Castiel squirmed atop Dean, the head of his erection seeking purchase near Dean's navel. His arm burned at the odd angle and under such strain. His body ached and his groin had become painfully desperate for release. Once he felt fully comfortable scissoring open his fingers to their fullest extent, he removed them. He heard Dean mumble something near his head but he was on a mission now. He sat up slightly and reached back until his hand bumped against Dean's shaft. Excited by the noise he received in response, Cas took a moment to stroke the head of Dean's member, twisting his thumb around the tip to gather precum.

Dean gripped Castiel's arms and arched his back into the touches. It had been--damned--too long since he'd done this with anyone, let alone someone he really, truly desired it with. Castiel's confident but somehow still unsure tickles to the head of his cock made his toes curl. He let out a hiss through pursed lips as Castiel pumped his length twice then slid backwards. Dean wanted to warn him--to stop him--to tell him they needed to wait, to tell him that wasn't enough that Cas didn't understand what he was doing that this might be a mistake, but Cas seemed to know better than Dean at every turn.

Castiel took in a slow breath as he pressed the head of Dean's erection to his entrance. He shifted slightly then sank back. His mouth opened though he produced no sound as he was pierced by just the head of Dean's member. He dropped his hand and quickly grabbed onto Dean's side as he moved further back, taking in more and more of the hunter. Self exploration soon paled in comparasin and Castiel found himself in the throes of a feeling all too new for his nearly overwhelmed body. He sucked in a slow, desperate breath as he realized he'd taken the full length of his hunter.

Dean cursed silently, eyes squeezed shut and mouth parted just enough to let air through. He was completely and totally wrapped up inside his angel. Something he'd known he'd wanted for years but could never find the courage to admit to himself. Castiel had waited for him, had been patient and kind and understanding somehow in spite his--now very obvious--own need. Now they were joining, completely, and it was getting damned good. Dean gave Cas a moment to adjust but he knew he couldn't hold out forever. He slowly bucked his hips out, arching his back and sliding his length free nearly half-way. His re-entry was slow and calculated.

Castiel--still attempting to remain at least partially composed--could not hold in a moan that started as Dean began to pull out of him. The long, heady sound continued throughout Dean's move, rising in pitch slightly as the hunter re-entered. The burning was unlike anything Castiel had ever experienced. The fullness of Dean reminded him emotionally of something he could not put his finger on. Another of Dean's slow thrusts and Castiel could take no more. His body had tasted something close to release and now he was a man possessed. He pushed himself up to sit straddling Dean's hips, he began rocking along Dean's length.

Dean grunted and his hands fell to Castiel's knees as the ex-angel sat up. Dean sucked his bottom lip into his mouth and growled around it, sliding his hands up Castiel's thighs to reclaim powerful hips. Castiel's hands found their way to Dean's upper chest, resting just below his tattoo. Dean let his half-lidded eyes trace the bend in Castiel's back, the part of his lips, the glazed over look in his eyes. He surged upward and crushed their lips together, drawing a hand away from Cas' body to tangle into short hair. All the while Castiel picked a pace that seemed insane for someone with his level of experience.

Castiel's fingers turned into the flesh of Dean's chest, leaving dull, welting red lines. His legs burned as he continued to pull himself off of and then back onto the hunter. His vocal cords were no longer listening to any of the impulses his brain was sending and he was a mess of noise and none of it coherent. The familiar urge was rising and Castiel still had no way to describe the sensation aside from known to him in some form. His toes curled, he pressed his head into Dean's groping hand desperately looking for something, anything else to push him into the final moments.

Dean found himself open-mouth panting like a dog, unable to close his lips for any period of time between gaping at how beautifully raunchy his angel looked and moaning himself to being mute. His hand on Castiel's waist was no longer guiding the thrusts but simply riding out the waves of motion. He tugged gently at the hair between his fingers as Cas nodded into his touch like an animal. He caught a glimpse of the crinkle on Castiel's nose--the one that usually only appeared with a smile--the set of his jaw and the look in his eyes. Dean's angel was close. He slid his hand away from Castiel's hip and fisted the ex-angel's weeping erection.

Castiel felt as if he were going mad. His body was running towards some goal he had no idea how to achieve. The slide of Dean in and out was all his mind could understand, so the moment a touch registered to his own needy erection he let out a string of enochian that would have made Gabriel blush. He did not pause to offer Dean a translation. He pulled his head free of Dean's hand and leaned back onto the hunter's knees. He lifted his arms and pressed his hands to the roof of the Impala as he continued to rise and fall in time with Dean's stroking.

Dean licked his lips, unable to move his eyes from the spectacle before him. He had entertained the idea of making Cas come undone. Hell he'd never admit it but he'd masturbated plenty thinking about how exactly the angel would look once he'd been taken, ravaged. Nothing compared with the frantic absolute power his angel exuded in his final moments. Dean could feel his own edge trailing along behind but knew Castiel would not last much longer. He focused his fingers along the underside and head of Castiel's cock, watching as the ex-angel's breathing became more ragged, his rhythm hiccupped.

Castiel was finished, undone, completely unraveled in a matter of seconds. His ears rang and his vision was overcome by a blinding white light. He came over Dean's hand, trailing a thin stream along Dean's stomach. His mind lost all semblance of reasoning and logic as a feeling swept over him that he knew. A feeling that slowly began to register with a name and a place and recognition. The feeling of completion with his hunter--the feeling of very human, very primal orgasm at it's core--was nothing short of being in the presence of his Father, of being suddenly re-connected to the Heavenly Host and all of his brothers and sisters. In short, it was bliss.

Dean grit his teeth as Castiel came, the ex-angel's body tensing completely. The hunter let his head slam into the seat of the Impala as the walls around his erection shuddered and squeezed and quivered around him. There was no denying /that/ kind of response. Dean let out a long, low moan as he climaxed just seconds following Castiel. He felt himself throb and empty into the man atop him. Castiel crumpled suddenly against Dean's chest and the hunter slipped out. He winced at the chill and wrapped his arm over Castiel's shoulders.

\--

"Hey, Sammy." Dean said into the phone, glancing over his shoulder at the Impala.

"Dean? Why are you calling? You never... is everything ok? What happened?"

"Calm down, Sam. Everything's fine." Dean braced the phone against his shoulder to properly button his jeans. The shirt over his shoulders remained open, catching the breeze occasionally but it felt good.

"I stopped to patch Cas up, took longer than I thought it would." Dean supplied, returning to the car's side. "We should be home in a few hours." He glanced into the backseat. Cas--with his hastily donned pants--was wearing the trench coat like a blanket, dead to the world.

"Home?" Sam said with a soft chuckle on the other end. "Man, how did /that/ feel?"

Dean hesitated. He smiled and leaned against the Impala.

"Pretty good, Sammy. It felt pretty damned good."


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A few choice quotes and I want to explore sexuality. It’s not gay or straight, it’s not even bi. It’s love and the details don’t matter.
> 
> Or
> 
> A look through Dean Winchester's defining moments, leading up to the dawning of a realization in a man who would have described himself as 'mainly heterosexual'.

As a collection of dos and don’ts, the male sex role [is] a recipe for despair, given what it [takes] to be a real man, few, if any, men could live up to the image, and hence all men...feel like failures as men. What’s worse, the psychological costs of trying to live up to the image...lead[s] men into lives of isolation and despair, of repressed emotion and deferred dreams. 

\- Michael Kimmel

 

Dean glanced up at the reflection of himself in the mirror, water still dripping from his nose and chin. He frowned as he tilted his head to one side, then the other, admiring with a noted lack of adoration the wrinkles in the corners of his eyes. He shook his head and smiled slightly.

"Agin' like a fox." He whispered to himself. 

He stood up straight and grabbed a nearby towel to dry off and remove any remnants of shaving cream he might have missed. His mind wandered to the rest of the bunker, to what was the strangest family Dean Winchester had ever known. He felt his chest tighten and a smile returned to his face. Just thinking about the chaos in the bunker as 'family' and 'home' made him feel weak in the knees. Since when did a hunter get to have that? Since when did a Winchester? 

"'Bout time though, I guess." Dean continued out loud to himself. "Wish you could see this, Bobby." He shook his head. "I can't imagine what you'd think or say. This is nuts, we're trying to do the 'one big happy family thing' and to top it all off I think humans are outnumbered here at this point." Dean paused to do a headcount. "Yeah, out-numbered." He leaned into the sink as he turned, eyes moving towards the crack in the bathroom door leading to his bedroom. He crossed his arms over his chest.

He imagined Bobby in front of him, giving him that look of disbelief. 

"You always knew how to keep us on track, man. You knew just what to say, even if you didn't want to say it and we didn't want to hear it. But--I think I know what you'd say about this," Dean gestured lightly to indicate the bunker situation, "and I gotta say you'd be dead wrong." He winced. "Sorry. What I mean is... damn, this goes against everything a hunter's taught. This goes against everything you taught us, everything we learned, even regular common sense. But it's workin', Bobby, it's workin' and for once I'm treadin' careful 'cause I don't want to mess this up. You know? Of course you know. I just hope this doesn't end for us like it ended for you with those zombies all those years ago." Dean shook his head. "I think I'm happy, Bobby. How's that for a heart-stopper? I'm having trouble holding on to the concept though 'cause it's been so long since I've woken up and gone to bed with the same grin on my face, since I've gone a week without losing someone I care about, and I'm starting to wonder sometimes if I might not be dead already. But then that would make this heaven and that's bullshit."

"You'd be proud of us, wouldn't you Bobby? Me an' Sammy, still trying to save the world but managing and with a home to come back to?" Dean paused, rubbing the back of his neck. "Man, with /love/ waiting for us? I mean... talk about chasing unicorns, right?" He laughed hoarsely. His eyes wandered to the floor, following the strange and out-dated patterns on the bathroom rug. 

"What about you, dad?" Dean ventured quietly, as if he were truly summoning the ghost of his father simply by mentioning it. "You proud? Is this where you saw Sammy and I? Is this what you wanted for us? I mean, maybe not living in harmony with the things we're trying to kill but... almost doing the family thing?" He laughed and turned his head, gripping the sink behind him and leaning forward a little. "What about Cas, huh? You see that one coming? I sure as hell didn't." Dean's voice grew quiet. "I might have, though, if not for you. I mean, you always taught Sammy and me to treat everybody with respect--even 'the gays'--but that was the end of the discussion. Did it ever cross your mind that Sammy or me would...? Nah, never did. You were a man and that's how you raised us. You just followed the path set by everyone else. Would it have killed you to talk to us every now and again? To listen, maybe? Damnit. You know I place a lot of this on your head, old man. All I ever wanted was to be good enough for you and the only time you ever gave me the time of day was when women were involved--when we bonded over what it meant to be a man. Ever occur to you what that did? How unhappy and confused that made me?" Dean let out a low sigh. "Nevermind."

He pushed himself away from the sink and started towards the door. He hesitated, hand on the knob, and glanced over his shoulder as if walking out on a conversation. 

"I owe you both but right now, I've got work to do."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all so much for reading/leaving kudos/comments, it makes my day! I'm thrilled you liked enough to keep reading and hope you enjoyed what you found.
> 
> That's it for this little trial fic here--that is my first dive into Supernatural--but I've got other things in the works. 
> 
> Thank you all again!


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